One holiday eve...

The bug hopped around quite a bit modelling her bunny suit before heading out to trick or treat with Dad:



Happy Halloween!

My Pumpkin, at the Patch.

Last week I accompanied my daughter's preschool class to the Pumpkin Ranch, a fall family fun center with much marketing and a number of apparently inoperable rides. On our way in, we passed the organic-goods indoor area and a JUMPY CASTLE. Fully inflated. Which the children were not allowed to play on because "that is only for weekends," according to our tour guide. Like preschoolers know what day of the week it is. So some tears were shed there while we waited for the group to assemble.

The natives were restless even before the herding started, but they scattered like dust in the wind when they were asked to "group up, now, it's time to walk into the tent over there." Eventually, all the parents rounded up the strays and the tour began.

After scarecrow making, a hay maze, and some information on beekeeping, the kids were allowed into a clearly marked fun area: the "petting zoo."

Goats, sheep, lambs, and an extremely patient and long-suffering llama were all featured in this particular petting zoo, and the kids had a wonderful time (molesting) (pulling on) (trying to ride) (shoving and chasing) petting the animals. In return, none of the animals ate the children. In retrospect, this might not have been the most satisfying outcome for either side.

After the petting zoo, a trip through a corn maze, and large applications of hand sanitizer, the preschoolers were given a brief lecture on various types of squash, pumpkins, and gourds that were available at the Pumpkin Ranch. They were also given small bags with coupons good for one-half the cost of any of the rides that weren't operational on weekdays, which most of them promptly lost so I couldn't be too offended by the direct-marketing technique. Then they were allowed to pick out one pumpkin from the "small" patch to take home, their choice. Here is the bug with hers:


The end of the trip nearing at last, the bug claimed her booty from the field in triumph. She and her classmates joyously recongregated, thoroughly pumpkinized, for more hand sanitizer and fruit snacks before heading to the car. This trek unfortunately took us past the jumpy castle, again, which now had small children bouncing in it but NOT HER, and NOT her friends. (Apparently the rides are for post-school-visit higher-paying customers. ) Needless to say tears were shed and fits were pitched by a number of the class on their way out. It's one thing to tell kids that it's not the weekend yet. But it's "NOT FAIR when someone else gets into the jumpy castle and it's the same day, Mom, it's the same day and we didn't get to go."

It was a beautiful fall day outside and the kids all napped for over an hour after lunch, so those are two reliable signs of a good field trip. I'm learning about this parent-on-a-field-trip gig early so I'll be the cool parent by middle school, maybe. Probably not.

Snapshots of things to come.

Sick bug = not much posting of late. She has recovered from toddler malaise so I will be posting various pictures as soon as I regain access to the computer that the pix are on.

Topics to look forward to shortly:

• My Christmas list
• The cover letter I'd really like to write for my job applications
• Trip to the Pumpkin Patch, and the jumpy castle that wasn't.
  
• Halloween Fun, and associated rhymes

Thank you all for your online and offline comments regarding my job applications. I'll be pushing ahead with those and will keep you posted as replies roll in, probably during early springtime. Now, it's back to polishing my CV and getting those app packets out the door...

Job applications.

Given the way things are around here with my multi-job situation, it is clear to everyone that I am quite likely to be out of a job by, say, May, possibly August at the latest. Not because my employers dislike me but because that's the way the interim position crumbles.

The class I'm teaching ends in December. The language center gig will either end next week, or at the end of the academic year. So I've basically already begun a new-job hunt, and quite the schizophrenic one considering all the "if-then" statements involved.

What this means is that I'm considering going on the tenure-track job market because it's probably my last chance to do so. I'm four years out of my Ph.D this year, and I've been in administrative (not faculty) gigs since I graduated. If I want to give that market a shot, this is probably my last chance.

There are already plenty of committee piles where I will end up on the "no" heap right off the bat because they will look at my publications (varied subject matter, not in first-tier journals) and my recent work record (not solely a lecturer working for a pittance), and discard me without further thought.

However, there are FIVE jobs in my specialty area this year, and two are within commuting distance of where we currently live. The others are in Iowa, (Milwaukee) Wisconsin, and (yes, my Fighting Irish friends!) Indiana.

Not only do I have to be a strong enough candidate to get shortlisted; I have to be intriguing enough to cut a spousal hire deal if we have to move. Matt agrees that two tenure-track jobs would trump our current situation, but I agree with him that it would take nothing less than that for us to even consider moving. We really like it here and he really likes his job. So that's daunting.

I also have a pretty good sense of my odds at getting shortlisted, after spending the interim as an administrator. Briefly, they suck.

I'm not absolutely positive I should put the time into applying that it will take to do it well. If I don't do it, though, I'll probably always wonder how I would have done. (Heck, I've already been wondering that for the last four years!).

And of course I'll also be looking at local academic admin jobs, and local non-profit jobs, and...the sheer variety of people who will be authorized to reject me completely in the coming months is overwhelming. This is why I didn't go into acting all those years ago in college, remember? I couldn't take the rejection after what I felt was a strong audition.

Aack. Thoughts? Advice? Pithy remarks?

Bug theology.

"God is great.
He keeps my sippy full.
He loves me a lot,
until it's Halloween.
And then there's candy."

--original lyrics, my daughter
to the tune of...well, it's sort of a tune.

Clearly, some parts are sticking of the general prayers-at-night, church on most weekends, concept of God-is-good ideology. Other parts...well, it's really interesting to see what's sticking and what's not. Youth theology is not so much my forte, methinks. But something is clearly being instilled, which I hope will be a base for a more deeply personal and meaningful understanding down the road. Of what sort I am not precisely sure. I worry only slightly about the materialistic twist at the end, mainly because it's going to blow her small mind when she grasps that GOD HAS CANDY ALL THE TIME IF (S)HE WANTS IT.

It's not that I expect much exactly in terms of preschool worship--pictures of the ark and animals (loosely constructed) are about what I remember creating in the church basement at this age. I just think about "Let them come to me like little children..." and I truly do wonder if kids are "better" at faith because they have a different kind of understanding. This was the bedtime song she sang me tonight and it's combining her current favorite seasonal theme with some inspirational material related to bedtime in general. But the "full sippy" bit was a surprise. We've been talking in church about generosity and giving gifts so maybe she understands that concept at some level, that all we have has been given to us. Or maybe it just rhymed in her head. Who knows? I learn a lot from her even though her way of thinking is clearly very, very different from my own.

Duck, duck...heh, heh, heh.

Matt cooked a goose last night.

It was his first attempt at roasting this type of fowl, and while it overshot its estimated cooking time by almost two hours, well... the wait was worth it.

I would post pictures but I didn't think about taking any until it was far too late and the lovely bronzed beastie had devolved into a hacked-up carcass.

And the amount of fat produced? Legendary. Seriously, I think there are about three pounds of fat left in the pan. And that's after he removed some and 'rendered' it, which actually produces clear fat for frying and other kitchen uses.

I am proud of his foodie nature and am also a happy beneficiary of his culinary experimentation. No real earth-shaking news in this post, just a shout-out to the person who feeds me.

Boots and crumbs.

And to continue on the photographic update thread....

Here is the bug on her first morning at her new school:


And here are her new boots!



And for a special bonus, the bug post-Daddy's birthday cupcake:

Some photographic evidence.

We went camping two weekends ago, and we saw elk.

Not just casually. Seriously, we saw elk up close and personal.

It's taken me this long to find the camera, but check these two photos out:



So you get a sense of how close they were to the road.





So you get a sense of just how freaking huge they were right next to the car.

I am thankful that they came in peace.

Maaaaa-rian. (SHHHH!) Madame Librarrrrrrrr...

So today I embarked upon the process of considering a better way to structure library procedures for the multimedia library associated with one of my jobs. The kinds of questions that are coming up:

* How long is a reasonable length for checkout of an item?

* Should instructors be able to check something out for a whole semester or is that "hogging" an item that might be in demand?

* How do we alphabetize/ organize/ find items in our catalog that are titled in non-English-character languages, like Chinese? Followed quickly by: How can we make that easier?

* Is it better to have one copy each of many different titles so that we have the rare good stuff that is hard to find? Or is it better to have multiple copies of hot items in demand so that people don't go away empty-handed? (We're not Blockbuster; given our space we can do one or the other.)

Those of my readers who have known me for many years will know that my first non-Christmas-pageant musical was "The Music Man." We did it during my freshman year of high school, and I was in the chorus. With two long pigtail braids and a flouncy pink dress, no less. Our multimedia library lacks the spiral staircase and big library tables of the small-town Iowa library in the classic movie version. Nonetheless, I've been humming the library song for hours ever since emerging from the meeting where all these questions were asked. I'm also starting to understand why Marian was so uptight. People in charge of libraries have to say "no" to silly requests a LOT.

And the follow-up:

My final official time for the Backroads: 2:12:23.

Woo-hoo!

Finished 835th out of 1332 overall, and 146th out of 268 women in my age group. There are some amazingly fast people who ran this race. Just for a sense of perspective:

Fastest female: 1:23:07. That's 13 6:20 miles. In a row.

Fastest male: 1:15:03. Not quite twice as fast as me, but darn close.

And the marathon winners: 2:54:04 fastest man; 3:13:49 fastest woman.

Kind of leaves me in awe of what human bodies can achieve, frankly.

Backroads race report.

Yesterday was super-sweet.

The race went really, really smoothly, from first wakeup to post-race bubble bath. Now that my husband is officially 34 (as of Saturday!) and much older and wiser than me, he made sure I had coffee in hand before I rolled out the door with my sandwich and race gear around 6:25 a.m.

I was expecting some major traffic snafus at the Boulder Rez, since last year it was rather time-consuming to get in and out of the parking areas. What a pleasant surprise to basically roll up to the park entrance and be motioned into a spot approximately ten minutes later! Race start time was 8 a.m. and I was there and parked by 6:45, well ahead of my expectations.

Packet pick-up was also a supremely organized area. There were perhaps 75 other people in the vicinity getting their stuff, but I was in and out with my racing chip, commemorative pint glass, and t-shirt within five minutes. (One small complaint: not a technical shirt? for a $75 entry fee? Do better next year--I loved my tech shirt from this race in '06 and was disappointed to get a plain white T with a rather unattractive logo.)

That brought me to 7 a.m., and whitecaps were forming on the Rez. It was about 50 degrees out but the wind was cold, and coming from a direction that meant a good chunk of the first half of the race would be run into a stiff headwind. People were huddling in their cars and trying to decide how many layers of clothing to run in, whether to keep their warmups on and throw them over the fence by the starting line, how to dress, how to warm up, what to do...since I was by myself I had plenty of time to observe other people's decision-making processes. And to go back to my car and enjoy that cup of coffee. I was not envying the marathoners their 7 a.m. start.

By 7:45 I headed out of the car toward the starting line. I'd been dithering myself about how many layers to wear, and decided to go with the fleece-over-tank-top-and-shorts approach. This heavy-on-the-top, light-on-the-bottom approach seemed common among my fellow runners. Chip on, hydration down, last pit stop at the the portable toilets, and I found my place near the middle back of the pack. I had no real idea what time I'd finish in but basically hoped to run without walking except at aid stations for as long as I could keep that up.

About 7:59, just as they called runners to the line for the final time, the sun came out from behind the clouds. The start was on the northeast side of the Rez and the winds weren't nearly as bad as in the parking area so it seemed almost pleasant as we all began in one huge pack.

The pack stayed together for almost two miles, which made it hard to hit much of a stride. On the positive side, though, since I was moving with the group and not trying to pass anyone, I barely noticed the first two miles of the race. About a half-mile after the first aid station, the course changed direction and we started running into the wind. I still had enough company that it wasn't too bad though, and I started to find a good rhythm. I had no watch, no cell phone, no GPS, and no idea of my own speed, but wow, was it a beautiful morning.

Around mile 5, I caught up with a gentleman who was clearly also out for enjoyment. I asked him what his goal pace was and he said "around ten-minute miles." He'd been injured the previous week and his main goal was just to finish. I asked how the rest of his season had been and he told me about the other races he'd done--practically every marathon in Colorado this year, so I was privileged to hear about a lot of fun races around the state. We ran together for about a mile when the half-marathon leaders started coming back the other way. (The race was on an out-and-back course.) This huge cheer travelled along the whole race path--you could hear them coming in front of us, and you could hear the cheers like a big sound wave behind us as they sped into the distance. Really inspiring. He and I played tag for most of the race before he pulled away out of sight in the last mile.

Around mile 6, the wind changed direction and the sun began to warm up the course. By the turnaround just after mile 7, I knew two things that made me very happy: 1) I would have a tailwind for most of the way back. 2) The better part of the next three miles would be a gradual downhill. These two pieces of knowledge helped me cruise through miles 7-10. I felt great: the day was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, I was well over halfway, and still running which was a pleasant surprise.

After mile 11 I could feel that I didn't have much left to give. There was one big hill on the way, right before mile marker 12, and I had to walk about 100 yards of the uphill to get to that "one mile to go" marker. After that mark, though, I started jogging back downhill and felt like I would be able to keep the pace until the end.

Zoom! I was passed on the left by a guy running, I don't know, incredibly fast, and being paced by a guy on a mountain bike who was yelling at the runner in Spanish. The marathoners had arrived. After that I was passed about every 30 seconds by people who were clearly in amazingly good shape and within a mile of a much more ambitious goal than my own. Three of them were running together and apparently considered 7:30-minute miles to be a conversational pace because they were chatting and having a fine time. Seriously impressive. I had to walk about another 100 yards with about a half-mile to go--note to self: consider nutrition planning of some sort next year--but got it back up to a run for the last half-mile into the chute.

My official race time hasn't been posted yet but I believe I finished somewhere around 2:13:00. That's about seven minutes slower than last year, but given how far I fell away from my training plan, it's a time I'm really, really happy with. I actually enjoyed myself on a long run, something I wasn't sure was even possible before yesterday.

Post-race, I went home to a fabulous bubble bath and storytime with my daughter before heading out to the Rio in Boulder for a tri-blogger meetup. I met both Bolder in Boulder and AJ of Little Miss Runner Pants, as well as several of their friends and other half-marathoners. The Rio's new deck on the third floor provided a view of some awesome scenery, and it was so much fun to meet people whose writing I've been reading for at least a year or so. We swapped race stories and talked about our plans for the year ahead. I'm still working on mine, but have some great food for thought as well as a mandate to blog more often. AJ had her camera along and pix were taken to commemorate the meetup, so hopefully I'll be able to provide some photographic evidence of the day before too long.