DC v. Woodpecker

I should probably preface this post with a brief explanation of my status as a hippy-dippy tree-hugger.

First, I am, if you are like everyone I used to know (you know, pre-USAF, and especially pre-bible-belt, life), not a hippy-dippy tree-hugger at all. In fact, if you are anything like all those people from that past life, you might have even accused me of being too Liberal ( as in John Stuart Mill Liberal). I would shock my truly liberal (as in non-conservative) friends by talking about religion, or taxes, or even things like the environment in a way that did not entirely match their worldview. But you know, we were tolerant hippy-dippy friends so we moved on.

Then I met husband-dear and his band of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and I somehow became the perfect embodiment of the liberal, sandal-wearing, tree-hugging hippie. And I know why. It's because I said all the hippy-esque things people expect a tree-hugging liberal to say about topics such as the environment (I love it!), war (can't say I care for it a whole lot), WIC (it helps poor people eat well), gun control (common sense, people, common sense), religion (my God is my God,but hey, if He's not yours, that's cool too. I love you anyway. Would you like a hug?), and marriage (you do what you need to do. With a consenting adult. Thanks).

So even though I am far too right-leaning to be considered "for real" by the genuine liberals, the locals, as well as most military folk, find me an oddity. It's fine, although I must admit I have learned to zip my lip a little more in the past five or so years.

Anyway, all this to tell you about my first encounter with a live woodpecker. Last night, as husband-dear and the boys were off on a spring break camping trip, a persistent knocking at our door sent me jumping up in the air. I opened the door to an empty front porch, and after a brief break, the knocking persisted. I looked up, and there it was, a small brown bird, hammering against the ledge over our front door. It appear unperturbed by my arrival, and it was only when I waved my arms and hollored at it that it flew off, clearly chirping an insult at me.

Assuming that was that, I shut the door. A minute later, the knocking resumed. I opened the door again, and yes, the bird was back, chipping away at our freshly painted front porch. A loud "Hey" sent it flying off, but three minutes later, it was back at it. This went on for some time, at which point this exasperated tree-hugging hippie sent the following text to her husband:

I know. It's terrible. I should probably turn in my sandals right now.

Fortunately for the bird, and my status as a tree-loving birkenstock-wearing liberal, I quickly found out that woodpeckers are actually protected animals, and therefore one is not allowed to shoot them. Although that made my little liberal eyebrows go up an inch or two ('cause, I mean, we're debating allowing teachers to carry guns into schools, but we can't shoot a woodpecker?), I am a law-abiding tree-hugging hippy (who couldn't hit a bird the size of a child's fist anyway), so the bird lived.

It was quiet the rest of the evening, and when I got up the next morning, I was convinced I had won the battle.
"Knock-knock-knock!"
And Woody was back.

This time I took to the internet with a vengeance, and came up with foil as a good scare tactic. So, while in my pajamas, I drug a chair out on the front porch, brought a roll of aluminum foil, and went to town. It was quiet for ten minutes, and then "Knock-knock-knock!". A brief look outside told me that Woody had just knocked the foil to the ground. What a piece of work. Back to google, and this time, I have a plan. A plan that I triumphantly texted to husband-dear later that morning.

So, Woody, watch your beak, because I. Am. Ready.

The ride-along

It's probably high time to resolve at least one of the other two pictures I posted last week, namely the one taken inside a car, and which featured a laptop built into the dashboard of the car. For those of you who were wondering whether I had finally truly embraced my status as a workaholic and had a computer installed in my car, don't worry, I'm not completely over the edge yet. The picture was, as some of you guessed, taken inside a police car.

So what was I doing inside a police car? One of the things you should know about me is that I'm really a little kid at heart. A little kid who loves tree houses, candy that makes your tongue change color, and who, when she grows up, wants to be a firefighter. Or a police officer. Fortunately for the eight-year old tomboy inside, our local police department allows local citizens to go on so-called ride alongs with their police officers. After hemming and hawing about this for weeks, because, seriously, isn't a ride-along for police wannabes? And was't I too old, too serious, too tree-huggy, hippy-dipy for something like this? I finally convinced myself that none of that really mattered, and I should just go already.

And so last Wednesday, I spent four hours with Officer Smith, patrolling the rougher neighborhoods in our town. Or what passes for "rougher" in our neck of the woods. After all, in a town where the vast, vast majority of the population is employed by the Department of Defense, and unemployment is so low I'm not even sure they keep track of it, the understandig of what is rough is possibly a little different from the rest of the world. Regardless, the ride-along, as my inner 8-year old would say, duh-mazing.

There was the odd bits of information about my town that I would have never suspected, such as the fact that the rooms in the two motels next to The Dairy Queen are mainly rented by the hour. Or that local teens hang out behind the Walmart to smoke pot. Then there were the locals themselves of course. Such as the unassuming driver of an SUV who decided that the best time to rifle through his repair paperwork and swerve from the curb to the centerlane and back would be on a busy thoroughfare with a police car right behind him. Or the small girl who stopped the police car to tell Officer Smith about the "crazy lady across the street" who had been harassing her older sister. There was a parolee who had violated their probation and needed to be arrested and taken to jail.

Then there were all the 911 calls that inspired most of the action. Some were what you'd expect, an alarm going off at a residence, someone reporting hearing gunshots fired, and a shoplifter caught at Walmart. Others were a little less common. like the woman who called from a daycare center to report that there was another woman there who "picks up her kids every day and lets them run across the street to her car." Call me off the wall nuts, but I might consider talking to the lady first myself. Fortunately, Officer Smith agreed with me, and after a futile search for a Toyota minivan driven by an Asian lady (Officer: "Well, that's a Toyota van in the right color, but I can't see the driver very well.". Me: "And I take it that pulling them over and saying, 'Oh, sorry, I thought you were Asian American is just not protocol'), we gave up, only to report to the call of the afternoon.

The way these calls work is that dispatch relays an emergency to a specific officer via a radio, and that the content of the call also appears on the laptop each officer has in their car. Because of the way the laptop is placed, I was able to read most of the calls as they came in, and this particular one made me sit up and take notice. The report on it read, "Caller says there is a convertible with the top closed sitting on side of the street. He can see two people inside, moving around, and the car is moving up and down as though they're having sex. Elementary school kids are about to get off the bus, so this should be checked out."
"I'm probably weird,", I piped up, "But I would knock on their car and ask them to stop first."
"Heck, " Officer Smith said, "I'd break out the popcorn, put out a lawn chair and pretend to watch them until they would be so embarrassed they would stop."
"Nice."

As we pulled into the street, we saw the bright yellow bus drop off a zoo of little kids.
"And there are the elementary school kids." The officer looked down the street and pointed at a big tree, "And there is the car."
(By the way, these cops have bionic eyes and ears. They see stuff before it's there, I swear)
So he pulled in front of the car, blocking it from view, got out, and knocked on the car door. A lone woman stepped out, looking thoroughly confused. Now, thanks to the fancy pants radio that all officers in our town carry, I was able to hear every conversation the officer carried out while I waited in the car. And this conversation quickly turned into something Ionesco himself could have written. Or any other modernist French playwright for that matter. But after ascertaining that there had been no untoward behavior exhibited by this lady, or her apparently invisible passenger, we went on our merry way. No second person, no sex. Young minds were kept pure and innocent, but I was just a tad disappointed. I mean, we're in the bible belt, and this would have presented me with enough material to keep me at the center of attention of all parties until the new year.

Two more calls, one last trip past a notorious "drug house" (who would have ever thought we had such a thing in our town), and one attempt to pick up a wanted parolee later, and the officer's shift was over. It was time to head back to the station.

And the eight year old inside of me was happy.

First world problems

Although I love the suggestion that Wednesday's pictures might have had something to do with not wanting to do dishes, a murder, and then a subsequent forgetting of where the body was buried as well as a mandatory ride in a police car, it was, (un) fortunately, not so. No one was murdered, there were no bodies anywhere, rides in any police vehicle was completely voluntary, and we in fact really wanted to do dishes. Only we couldn't.

Last weekend started off like any other weekend. I made cookies, Ozzie helped, while Jimmie talked his dad into going for a drive*. When Jimmie and husband-dear came home, Jimmie went on to instruct his brother on how to properly color the frosting, while husband-dear poured us a drink. And then it began.

CRASH!!

"What the..?"
A quick trip into the garage told us that the spring on our automatic garage door had just broken. Knowing nothing about springs, garage doors, or anything that doesn't involve a book, a spatula, or running shoes, I looked at husband-dear, who stated, "I can fix that. I just need to get to Lowe's in the morning."

I looked at the CRV parked in the now hermetically sealed garage, "You know I'll need my car to take Zac to tutoring tomorrow."
"It's fine, I can take the truck."

And so we went back into the house, where the boys were now arguing over whether the frosting was grey or vomit-colored, and all was well.

Until the next morning. Because Ozzie had been begging me to make my cinnamon swirl pancakes, and because we are horrible parents who not only give their kids what they want when they want, but feed them sugar in the morning too, husband-dear and I decided to make a big breakfast. He started grilling sausages and frying bacon while I mixed the cinnamom filling. At one point, husband-dear reached under the sink for some wipes, "Oh. My. God."
"What?!"
"This whole cabinet is flooded." He reached in a little further, "Oh crap**"
"What? What?" (I firmly believe in demanding constant exposition, even in real life).
"One of the pipes broke. Get some towels."
Ten towels and a hastily-emptied cabinet later we discovered that the culprit was indeed a broken pipe, but that thanks to my laziness in taking out the tarp that the previous owner had taped to the bottom of the cabinet, the cabinet would live. And fortunately, husband-dear, as the man of the hour, proposed to run to Lowe's "real quick" to pick up more pipe and other plumbing stuff, "I'll just take the truck, if you finish up breakfast."

Happy at having such an all-around husband, I set to mixing the pancake batter and calling out to the stirrings coming from the other side of the house, that we were having a big breakfast.

Ten minutes later, husband-dear reappears, red-faced (through the front door, mind you, remember, our garage door is still not working).
"That is a little quick."
"The truck just died." Husband-dear said ominously, "It's the battery or the fuel pump or I don't know what, because i just fixed all of that."
"I'm sorry."
While usually husband-dear is the pinnacle of calm and relaxed, he was not happy just then. In fact, he was doing a pretty good job chaneling whatever evil spirit usually takes over my body when things don't go my way. And I couldn't blame him. One car stuck in an uncooperative garage, one broken down, again, and a broken pipe that led to an unusable sink and an ever-growing pile of dishes. Because while anyone would have abandoned their endeavor at making breakfast at this point, that is not how we roll at our house. We. Are. Not. Quitters. Come hell or high water or broken pipes, we were going to have cinnamon swirl pancakes. With sausage. And bacon.

But to say the mood in the kitchen was merry and bright when Ozzie made his way in would have been an understatent.
"What's wrong?" The usual non-morning person, non-observant, you-could-put-a-dragon-in-the-kitchen-and-I-will-not-notice-if-it's-before-11, child asked.
After his dad gave him a terse run down of all the stuff that had broken in the past twelve hours, our mini Sheldon Cooper merely shrugged and said, "Eh, first world problems."
When we gave him two blank stares, he continued,"Well, we have running water. We have a car. Three actually, and we have a garage. Those kids in Africa would kill for our problems."

Somehow, that shook both his parents out of their woe-is-us stupor. And so, when the cinnamon swirl mix turned out to have hardened after sitting around while we mopped up water and debated the state of our ancient truck, was put in the microwave, promptly forgotten as one of the pancakes threatened to burn, and exploded all over the inside of said microwave, all while we had no running water in the kitchen, what did we do? We laughed. Because at the end of the day, it could all be fixed. And it was.

And that is the tale of our ridiculous weekend. Well, almost. I shall explain the flags later. And the police car. In the meantime, you just keep on guessing.


*yes, he is that age now. Sigh.
** his words were far more colorful, as they should be when one discovers twp inches of water inside a cabinet at 7:30am, but I'll just keep it PG here.

Wordless Wednesday

Today I present you with three pictures that capture the past five days.
Three pictures that have evoked frustration, amazement, joy, and awe. Tell me the story and I will tell you how right or wrong you are...

The Office: Your home away from home

Last week I did something I should have probably done five years ago: I bought a coffeemaker and set it up in my office. No more begging secretaries for their coffee, no more trips across campus to the decadent and overpriced coffee shop. From last week on, I am able to brew my own fancy coffee in my very own office using my very own Keurig coffeemaker.

As far as bringing personal items to work, I’m somewhat of a strange one. While fellow faculty members regularly cart in lamps and tables and chairs, the only times I have to borrow our departmental dolly, it’s to carry in books. And more books. Or maybe some journals. So when a staff member saw me hauling a crate into the elevator, he joked, “Do you have any room left for more books?”
“I don’t know, but this is a coffee maker.” I said.
“Ah, you’ve finally caved in.”

And he’s right. I have caved in. Into the desire to have caffeine at my fingertips whenever my body is pleading for it I need it. And into the trend that appears so visible on this campus, and all other American campuses of which I have been a part, namely to bring own one’s things into one’s office. I don’t know what it is about American academics, but they just love to turn their office into their home away from home. Granted, they also don’t receive the ergonomically correctly adjusted chairs, desks, footstools, and mouse pads that Dutch academics get on their first day on the job, but still. I can’t think of any Dutch professors who bring in their own furniture. The most one might see a Dutch scholar carry into his or her office is a plant, or an electric kettle (in case the departmental kitchen is only outfitted with a coffeemaker), or, if the scholar is the lucky recipient of a couple of kids, some art.

Now let’s look at the offices in my “regular” building, the one I’ve been living in for the past five odd years. When Steve still occupied the office next to mine, I remember being completely surprised when he ordered and paid for some framed art to hang on the wall. Why anyone would want to pay to decorate a space they don’t own was beyond me. But he did. And while I taped my infamous collection of quotes over my printer, Steve called facilities to hand his pictures for him. And he liked it. Then when Steve left, his replacement not only brought in her own art, she also carried it on her own lamps, television, and bookcase. The professor across the hallway has brought in a sideboard, a filing cabinet, and a fridge, while another professor down the hall has adorned her office with an eclectic collection of rugs and inspirational posters. Yes, I said rugs.

It’s even worse in the building where I work on my grant. When I moved into my office two months ago, it had a desk, a small side table, a desk chair, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. I was told to order new furniture, and I did. With university machinery moving at the speed of lightning, as it always does, I am still waiting on said furniture. And as of today, my office contains a desk, a small side table, a desk chair, two chairs, a filing cabinet, a printer, some office supplies, an extra extension cord, a tub of Lysol wipes, a small candle, and one picture cut out from a Dutch calendar. It’s bare. I love it. My neighbor has the exact same office, with the exact same standard furniture. He, however, decided to make his place more homey, and has thus added: two rugs, three lamps of varying sizes, but all three match the rugs, a sideboard, a cozy reading chair, several framed paintings, four or five plants, a humidifier, a fridge, a coffeemaker, an electric kettle, and a portable AC unit. Another colleague decided he did not like to colors of his walls (academic white), so he painted them one summer. One is green, the others are beige, and he’s decorated the green wall with a framed collection of pictures of his favorite authors.

Don’t get me wrong, whenever I see these offices, I wish mine looked like that. They’re cozy, they make you feel at home, and they do a great job reflecting the personality of the person working there. But then I realize that getting my office to look like that would entail, a) purchasing all these things using my hard-earned money, b) getting it all into my car, across a parking lot, and up three flights of stairs, and c) taking time out from fun activities such as grading to decorate my office. And then I realize I don’t have the money, the desire, or the time, to do any of that. Plus, I don’t want to start liking my office too much. I mean, it’s one thing to spend a lot of time there because you have work to do, but I don’t need to fall in love with the place, you know? Before you know it, I’ll never come home again. Especially when you consider that my new building is outfitted with showers too. It’s just too risky.

So I’m guessing that the coffeemaker will remain my one concession to this American trend. Unless someone has always had a burning desire to decorate offices. Then you’re more than welcome to try your luck on my two little cells.

Stupid is...

Apparently having part of your work change into something that requires creative thinking and the coordination of lots of people does something to my ability to blog. Not only is there less time (I know! How is that even possible?), but there's also less "room" in my head. Instead of thinking about how this year we really will attend the annual grits festival if it kills us, I now spend my drive home wondering about whether I could get co-worker A and co-worker B to collaborate on grant project C. I mean, I almost feel grown-up when I think along those lines, you know.

Fortunately, Georgia wouldn't be Georgia if it didn't something phenomenally, well, let's just call it phenomenal to draw my attention away from health disparities, grants, and other grown-up concerns.  Thank heavens for little favors!

In the next week or so, the Georgia state legislature will be wrapping up its 2013 session. As opposed to the US Congress, our state congress only meets for forty days, at the beginning of each year. I'm sure they figure that if God can flood the earth in forty days, Georgia can figure out how to rule itself for the next year in that same amount of time as well. Well, anyway, whenever a session is about to wrap up, a flurry of bills try to make it through one of houses in time for the cut-off date. Any bill not passed by one of the houses before that date will not be considered by the other house in that year's session, and thus will not make it into law. Some of the wildest bills are created during these last few days, and most of them are, after gaining some state-wide outrage, immediate discarded. But not so for this bill.

What bill is this, you ask? Well, the Georgia house of representatives, in all of its infinite wisdom, has passed a law that would allow people to carry weapons in places that previous did not allow people to carry guns, such as college campuses.
Yes, college campuses.
The twenty-six people killed at Sandy Hook Elementary are barely cold in the ground, and while the rest of the nation ponders ways in which to curtail the propensity of guns and the size of clips, the Georgia house overwhelmingly approves a bill that would have college campuses, oh, and churches, (We all know about how dangerous it is to walk from one's car to the church front door these days. People robbing churchgoers like crazy down here) allow people to bring weapons on to their grounds.

Obviously, the bill still needs to make it past the Georgia senate, but the fact that the house would even consider such a bill is beyond comprehension to me. Their reasoning, in case you're interested, is that in the case of a lone gunman (i.e., Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, etc.) people on campus would be able to defend themselves. Now although you can't deny that there is some kernel of truth to that line of reasoning, the Georgia representatives obviously have no idea what today's college life is like. As my students would tell you: It's stressful, man. Like, really. Stressful enough that tantrums dot a usual semester, and that finals week is usually punctuated by at least one, if not two, breakdowns/temper outbursts involving students and/or faculty. During my time here, I've definitely had more than my share of student-centered drama. Now imagine all of that while you're wondering if one of your little darlings is packing heat.
As one of my British colleagues said during the hastily-called faculty senate meeting last week, "That is a very silly proposal."
Silly indeed.

Fortunately, academics wouldn't be academics if they didn't come up with some interesting solutions. One chair, known for her peace-loving, smiling, befriend-everyone and hug-a-tree attitude announced that she'd just have to start carrying her pistol to college every day ("oh yeah, I have a carry permit, of course"), while a male colleague commented that he'd always wondered what it was like to work with an assault rifle strapped to his back.

All I can say is that I hope that the Georgia senate comes to its senses and repeals this craziness. I mean, I've heard bullet proof vests don't come cheap, and I'm not sure I can claim that on my taxes.

And about that saying that is the title of this blog? Well, I'll just let you finish that one for me...

At ease

You know all those lame sayings your mom your grandmother totally random old people who start talking to you as you're walking down the street always say to you? Phrases like "the more things change, the more the stay the same?", "a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush", "good fences make good neighbors", and "The way the clock ticks at home, it doesn't tick anywhere else"? OK, so that last one is actually not something a random American elderly lady would say to you, as it's Dutch. Or Dunglish, to be more specific. But you all get my drift, you know, "there's no place like home" or "you can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can't stick a spatula up your butt and jump over an electronic fence". Sorry. That last one was also not something an elderly lady would randomly tell you. Unless she's secretly a teenager suffering from Asperger's and a wicked sense of humor.

Anyway.
Sayings like that, ones that are annoying because they are true.
Well, today I was able to disprove two of them. Yes, two. First, there's "the more things change, the more they stay the same". As you all know, I've been working on an NIH-funded project, and a result have only had to teach two classes this semester. It's been a wonderful experience. But in spite of that, today still looked like this:

8:30-9:15am-Faculty meeting
9:15--9:45am Student appointment to retake midterm
9:45-1pm - Classes
1-2pm Presentation run through with students attending undergrad conference
2-3pm Committee meeting
4-5pm Taping interview

And that's not including a 7:45-8:30 class prep, three five minute meetings with students regarding their need to re-prioritize their lives in lieu of their recent midterm grade, five IRB proposals to evaluate, a long phone call to plan a lunch meeting, a brief meeting with the chair regarding an upcoming conference, and two treks across campus to get to the various meetings and back.

It sounds a lot like my life before the grant. And it was. But it wasn't. It could not have been more different. Not only because several of the meetings included people asking me for my opinion or advice, but also because I was happier than I ever remember being at work. Busier too, but definitely happier. When I was walking across campus to yet another meeting, stopped for the third time by a student who had a quick question, waved to a faculty member who called out a "hi" across the quad, and realized it had taken me ten minutes to traverse maybe half a mile because of all the people I knew who wanted to call out a greeting or exchange a few ideas, I knew why. It was because I, for the first time in a long, lone time, felt at home. I was surrounded by people I knew and who knew me, people who appreciated me, and for whom I would gladly drive three plus hours every day. Faculty members who wanted to collaborate, share a coffee, and who asked me for advice. Students who, even though they complained and griped the whole way, never ceased to come back and visit me after graduation. Students whom I would gladly describe as royal pains in the behind, but who were, above all, MY royal pains in the behind, and whom I would gladly encourage, cajole, pester, push, and call out until the moment they walked across the stage at graduation.

I'm almost afraid to say, lest I jinx it, but for the first time in a long time, I felt at home. No, we still haven't found a church home, or friends who mean as much to us as the ones who left, or whom we left behind. I still don't like living in a subdivision, and I also still don't understand why this town does not have a proper book store, an independent movie theater, or a downtown. But this afternoon, on that sun-filled quad, with half a day full of meetings and students and faculty, it all suddenly came together. This place is home. It may not be like any home I've ever known or will know. It may be the most unlikely home I have ever had. But I like it.