So, Treecup has got herself a new passion. It’s great for her.  She looks good, feels good, has normal blood sugar.  Sly describes himself as “raw adjacent” and I feel adjacent to the adjacent.  On Saturday they were kind enough to invite us to their club, which I heart.  After working out we went to a large chain restaurant, and Treecup had cooked vegan food to be social.  It’s perfectly normal to go work out and then go eat chain restaurant food, right?

Once we reconvened at their house, I wandered into the kitchen to explore the raw zone she’s created.  I was being my usual forward self and smelling tubs of stuff and being perhaps more disparaging than I ought.  Treecup offered up “cheese” on a “cracker.”  Sly says that her food has entirely too many quotes.  The “cheese” was made of cashews and was a rough approximation of cheese.  Like, if we were in the cheese ballpark and cheddar was playing first base, this was in an obstructed view seat in the upper upper deck.  Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd, buy me some (raw) peanuts and cracker flax…

Anyway, if the cheese was in the cheese bleachers, the “cracker” was maybe standing on the street waiting outside cracker stadium to catch a long ball hit by a saltine.  When Teresa asked how the seeds could be made to form a “cracker” Treecup informed us that, when soaked, flax seeds exude a semi gelatinous substance and then can be made into cracker shapes. Handy.  (See, there I go again being more disparaging than I ought.  Still, I have anti-flax seed feelings just at the moment).

We departed soon after our raw experience.  (I should note that I demurred for us when Treecup offered up a viewing of her new raw dvd).  She claims it very inspirational and I think we may need to watch it next time.

Anyway, I kept pulling flax seeds out from my teeth with my tongue.  One of them got lodged in my windpipe just as I was steering the FJ onto the 10.  (Non-SoCal note:  Socalies use the definate article when referring to freeways.  I’ve lived here long enough that I do it too.  “The 10″ = “Interstate 10″ which stretches from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Florida.  It’s 2460 miles long, which makes it longer by 270 miles or so than my high school distance.  I can code-switch well enough that when I go to Atlanta I switch back to “I-75″).   So, there I was getting on the freeway and needing to merge onto “the 57″ (aka California 57, which runs from Glendora to the Orange Crush for a distance of almost 24 miles) and I’m choking on this flax seed.  Coughing with watering eyes choking.  It persists all the way up the 57 until I merged onto “the 210″ (aka California 210/I-210 which runs from San Fernando to Redlands for a distance of 86 miles, it swiches from I-210 to CA-210 at the 57).  Choking and coughing so hard, I’m hoping not to vomit choking.

Teresa was very supportive during my coughing episode.  She offered my some tepid lemonade and offered to drive.  She also refrained from saying disparaging things about my Garmin nüvi, which was telling me to do things vis à vis the freeways.  Teresa vacillates between thinking the Nüvi is rude and thinking it might lose the will to live.  She doesn’t like that it interrupts her (which it does) or that I defy it (which I thoroughly enjoy doing ).  I agree wholeheartedly with my co-worker who says that all Nüvis (she has one, too) are “judgemental” when they say “recalculating” after you’ve defied their direction.

As I merged onto the 210, I finally stopped coughing.  I noticed at that very moment a Dodge station wagon (of the modern magnum/charger variety) that had a brown body and bright orange expensive looking rims.  It also had sepia tinted pictures painted across its sides.  Of Jesus.  Both sides.  Sepia Jesus on a Chrysler product.

WHY I stopped coughing is up to debate.  Some possibilities:

Chance?

The 210?

The biological dislodging of the flax seed from my windpipe?

The shock of the sight of the car?

Divine intervention?

Very hard to say.  Maybe if I had watched the raw dvd I’d know better.

Cracker flax, know thine enemy.

When I was younger, I would often go into my mother’s office. She has always kept Hershey’s Kisses in a jar and I’d have one or two. Because of what she does, I had occasion to spend a lot of time at her workplace as a child and teenager. Occasionally, I would also go to my father’s office. He didn’t have kisses, but inevitably had a better view. Hers was always a ground floor office and his was a high rise office. Sweeping vistas are ingrained in the American consciousness, even if the vista in question is of other high-rise buildings.

I always admired their degrees on the wall. I read them and then re-read them. They went to the same college, so the bachelors’ degrees looked the same, but their advanced degrees differed and I found their language and appearance very appealing. There was a deep commitment to education as an idea in my family, but the material culture of education also appealed deeply to me. The degrees themselves, the regalia, the places. The verdant landscapes in otherwise normal contexts.

Really, I wanted those pieces of paper. I have some of them now. Four, if you want to know. One of them has a typo. Two of them are framed. I really have no idea where the fourth one is. The “highest” one, as they say, had been sitting in its frame in a closet. I had never put it on a wall anywhere. I had it on top of a bookshelf at home for a while, but then our roof leaked and our office ceiling collapsed and, as I hauled ceiling and insulation out to the trash can, I put it away in the closet to keep it from forming some undeniable bond with the wet insulation.

This weekend, we cleaned out that closet so the house can be re-floored. I found that highest degree in the closet.

This morning, I brought it in to work. The frame had some smudges on it, so I cleaned it a little. I took down a picture I had taken some years ago of a cyclist whose name I don’t know and hung the degree on my wall. I like the language on it more than any of the ones my parents have, “The Regents of the University of California on the recommendation of the Graduate Council of the Academic Senate, Los Angeles Division have conferred upon [insert name here]” Isn’t that great? So florid.

It continues, “…who, by conducting original research has demonstrated thorough knowledge of [insert field here]” So, original research demonstrates thorough knowledge. Good to know. Now, with all of that, you still don’t know what degree it is. Way to bury the lead, UC. Good things come to those who bother to read the whole thing. The degree comes next.

…”The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.” There it is. Whew. Took a while. “with all the rights and privileges thereto pertaining.” I’m not sure what rights it gives me, but it is a privilege (most of the time) to be an Associate Professor for the same state the issued the piece of paper I’m currently discussing.

“Given at Los Angeles This Twenty Sixth Day of March in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Nine.” Note the lack of “of our Lord” language. Secularity is SO rampant in, well, secular institutions. Rightly so. It’s signed, by among others, the ousted former governor of the state. There’s also a gold seal.

It looks nice on the wall, I have to say. It perches right above a picture of a starling eating watermelon and next to my Union Pacific Las Vegas poster. I don’t know why I didn’t hang it there before. I wanted it for so long and then I got it. It belongs in my office with its first floor view. Come by and read it, if you want.

I came back from lunch with a colleague today and walked through our conference/eating area to the bathroom.

My staff eats. A lot. Badly. Do(gh)nuts. Cake. Cheetos. Almost everyday someone brings something in, always high in fat and calories. It drives me wild. I’m not the most food resistant person in the world. I try to resist. Sometimes it works. Other times, less so.

So, today I was walking by and there were two things sitting on the table with those “it’s for everyone” markers recognized the world over. Both items had small plates next to them and food serving devices nearby.

I stopped. I gaped. I may have gasped. I certainly sighed.

On the table was: a VERY gristly steak and next to it (on a seperate plate–a small mercy) there was a chunk of flan swimming in sauce.

Steak and flan. Both room temperature.

Here’s the good news: I had no trouble resisting. For your evening update, I should note that the flan was consumed and the steak is still sitting there. Anyone want some?

I’m not particularly fond of summer in my job. Like most faculty members at colleges and universities, I was spoiled by having a nine month job. Now I have twelve month job and lots to do in the summer. Most of what I have to do is tedious. Very tedious. Writing reports and the like.

There’s nothing I loathe more than having to click on this icon at any point in my day.

And there’s nothing more likely than summer to make me click the little bastard.
Don’t assume this is an anti-Microsoft rant. I am not anti-Microsoft. I don’t root for them or anything (any more than I root for the Yankees), but they make some fine products. I cleaved to WordPerfect for a long time and then abandoned ship like everyone else. (Bring back WP 5.2, I say!) But I don’t mind Word. I am capable of producing PowerPoint slide shows that aren’t excruciating (and isn’t that the goal, after all?), and I even use Entourage as my e-mail client at work. I say all of this despite a deep loathing for Windows. Deep. The Office suite, though, is fine. Except for that little green thing.

And, no, I’m not going to name it. To name it is to give it power. There it sits waiting for me to click it. It knows where I live. It knows where I work. It haunts my dreams.

Really, it’s ruining my summer. Go ahead, name it defend it, you won’t change my mind. Evil, thy name is……..

While my recent office troubles do not match my Honey’s, I have nevertheless been in a state of flux in my day-to-day environs. Over the past two years, I have let everyone in the office order new office furniture. I demurred because until this summer, I was in my current position as an interim. I thought it would look untoward to order furniture until such time as I got the job forever and ever. And thus it came to pass that I did. One morning early this fall, I went up to the furniture store which must exist solely on the revenue it generates from my institution. They saw me coming.

I fretted, measured, and ordered. I chose modern looking furniture with “white aluminum legs” and speckled gray tops. No need to pretend something is wood. Speckled gray pretends to be nothing but what it is–speckled gray.

Twice a month the physical plant people will remove furniture for free. Office Manager was worried that there might be some overlap between the old furniture and the new. So, a month ago they took away my old desk and chair. I hated them both. Buh Bye.

Once they were gone, my office seemed empty. Ok, let’s be honest, my office was empty.

I should note that one more “free take away” day happened between the take away and the arrival of the new furniture. I refrained from pointing this out to OM. I screamed it internally some and said it to other people, but didn’t say anything to her. Instead I would occasionally say things like, “can you tell me the status on the furniture?” See how brave and restrained I am?

A month and no desk? Wherever did I go? Well, I have a small conference table in my office and I set my computer up in the corner. It seemed pitiful. It was pitiful. I climbed over boxes of desk stuff to get to the corner. My gynormous monitor is wider than the table on which it sat.

Monday, my new desk and chair finally arrived. I immediately set up my computer and unloaded every box. I am a happy office dweller.

Instead of drawers, I got rolling half file cabinets with padded tops. Occasional office seating for all!

Admittedly late afternoon is not a great time for taking pictures out bright windows.

My new bag looks good in context.

Herewith some details.

My picture of Red, my sweetgrass basket with sequoia cones, and my Sequoia National Park Nalgene bottle.

Biscuit has her picture on the desk, too.

My bendy squishy avocado guy, the gel-e star I ordered to promote my program, my teeny Zen Garden and the pot that used to hold my bamboo. Also, emollient. Gotta emmolliate.

The devil ducks really want to See Rock City but never have. The chiflera is dying, but I’m efforting keeping it alive.

Obviously, there’s more in my office, but better to show too little than too much. I happy to be out of the corner and firmly ensconced in my new gray and white aluminum world.

I arrived from my two days of jury duty fun (I was never called into the box), to discover that Halloween had come to my office environs. October had arrived. Still. If this is what had found, I would have been happy.

It was not what I found.

I don’t like the aesthetics of my office as a whole. But, like a “make your own decisions” kind of boss, I let the mahogany and black happen. I have carpet. No one else does. I just ordered non-faux wood (it’s just faux) for an office make-over. But furniture is not the subject here. It’s shiny skeletons. Shiny pumpkins. Shiny witches.

Kind of like this (only bigger and more shiny):

It’s horrifying. Not boo scary. Scary bad. Scary shiny. But, what can I say? I make noise about secular winter decorations and that results in a lot of snowmen (some shiny) in December. We are a state institution after all. But in October? Nothing I can say. Other than, “you decorated.” Think flat tone there.

I shudder internally every time I walk out of my office. I don’t mind the inflatable spider and would be fine with some leaves an a gourd or two.

So, here are the questions, blogfriends:

Do you decorate your office/office spaces?

For which holidays?

What’s your aesthetic for that decoration?

Anyone want to trade some gourds for a shiny skeleton?

Oh, and if you like shiny jointed skeletons, speak up and tell me why!

By the way, I was looking for an image and discovered that “fallgourds.com” is available. Now’s your chance!

Tomorrow is the first day of the fall semester at my campus. Traffic will be horrifying. And my assistant director suggested in no uncertain terms that it was my turn to bring in “happy treats.” She’s right, it is my turn. And she’s also right that treats make the office crowd happy. I think I’ll get bagels. It seems healthier than most of the alternatives.

I’m just off the phone with one of the bath people. If I never hear another word about bathing, it will be too soon. Math either. The good news is that I have a new knife that clips to my bag. It’s long and tough looking. The bad news is that assault is still illegal. Assault thoughts aren’t. Being a twelve month administrator has its drawbacks at a nine month place. One of them is that you can’t take the summer off from math.

On the plus side, Alejandro Valverde is winning the Vuelta. Move on the next paragraph.

Hi! Glad you made it past that last bit…

I wish fall were more, well, autumnal in Southern California. It was over 100 today and hot and dry. When I was in college, fall in Washington always pleased me. It actually got crisp. Of course it also usually rained. But youth is best seen through the gauze of “aww.” I was just talking on Friday night about the wettest I’ve ever been after getting caught in a rain storm in D.C. in the fall. My car was so wet that for weeks, my shirt and pants would get wet from sitting in the seat. And woe unto the passenger, for he or she would be extra wet. And that was all from three people getting caught in the rain and then getting into the car.

New beginnings are nice, even if they seem inserted into my otherwise rolling existence. I decided to go to a lunch for new faculty. I’m not really new, but I am. Tomorrow is a Tuesday, but it’s also a beginning. And being a beginner means the promise of things to come. It also means you can screw up sometimes and attribute it to your beginner status. So, I think I’ll look forward.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a new phenomenon about which I was trained today:

Apparently what happens is that one is given a little plastic card with the above logo on it. And one can use that little plastic card to buy…

Do you want to guess? I had to! Think. Ok, fine, I’ll tell you.

Goods

and

Services!

Well slap my ass and call me me Sporks. Goods and services. No shit.

You want to know what’s great about the little plastic card I learned about today? Well, I guess the aforementioned goods and services have to be paid for by somebody. You know what? The nice people in Accounts Payable pay them. Isn’t that fantastic?

There are rules, I guess. No firearms can be purchased without prior approval. Got it. And it seems that when you have one of these little dandy dealios, you can’t just loan it out to people to use. Check.

The motivator (and that really is the only word for him) who told us about the plastic miracle liked the track and field coach who was sitting behind me. Our motivator was, in fact, much more impressed with the man who taught others to throw things than he was with me. How do I know?

Well, Mr. Motivator shared his Myers-Briggs personality type. Why did he share it? Because we were trapped and had to listen to him. The problem was, he couldn’t think of the name of the test. Like the sullen student I was channeling, I mumbled it under my breath. He then wanted to know what each of his letters stood for. I told him. Dr. INTJ didn’t so much resonate with Mr. ESFP but she knew what the letters stood for. Still Mr Motivator/ESFP was more interested in the fact that Coach Thrower had taken Potential Freshwoman Thrower to Chili’s. To Chili’s! Can you imagine? And used this little plastic thingy. And Mr. Motivator could show us the Chili’s charge on the computer. And Coach Thrower had spent $40. And then Accounts Payable had paid Chili’s. Can you see how riveting this all is?

Mr. Motivator began the day by asking our objective for the session. People said chirpy things about how excited they were to learn about this new phenomenon. I should note, I guess, that we had plastic things before. They had logos that looked like this:

These new ones, boy, they sure are different. What with the goods and services and everything.

I ate a donut on the break. I didn’t want a donut. I ate one anyway. I asked a famous blogger via e-mail to call in a bomb threat. I asked Assistant Director (also via e-mail) to come over to the building and pull the fire alarm. Both FB and AD refused. Where’s the love? I ask you.

FB did try later. But by then, I was free. Still, she’s my new hero. AD just laughed at me.

Three hours. That’s how long it took to learn about this plastic miracle.

All of what was worth knowing, I have just condensed into this entry. You can thank me later. By using a plastic thing to buy me goods and services. Who knows? Maybe Accounts Payable will pay. Anyone want to meet at Chili’s?

The Dean arranged CPR training for the “team” today. By which she meant the main faculty people in each unit and the office manager in each unit. I decided I couldn’t go with just OM and made AD come too. AD was willing. It was one of those things. There were some funny moments, like when the OM of another unit asked if we should strip people before we performed CPR. And when I pointed out that the “do not try to put organs back into the body cavity” advice was just good common sense. As was the notion that just born babies are slippery and you might drop them.

They had those CPR dummies and I somehow managed (thank goodness) to get out of crawling around on the floor. If anyone has a heart attack lying on a table, I’m your woman. It was good actually because my left knee doesn’t like me. I did feel like a weak sister, given that the Dean did it on the floor and she has at least 15 years on me. Still. Collapse on the table. Go ahead.

The whole thing gave me a headache and a neck ache. Which just shows how unable I am to function right now. It was effectively a “free” day and I couldn’t deal with the freedom. Somebody chain me to my computer!

The room the training was in is one of the nicer rooms on campus, big and bright with excellent equipment. But the chairs that room has. Sigh. They’re rigid narrow little assholes. They don’t twist, they don’t recline. And by the end of the day I couldn’t look side to side at all.

These kinds of things make me contemplate the random. Like how many earrings AD has in her ear (as I stare over her head) while my neck still works. Why I can’t stop looking at the Dean. Why the Assistant Dean wants to try out the portable defibrillator (aka the AED) so much.

That’s not him in the picture and we didn’t learn how to use one, but he was really glad when the trainer mentioned they could be bought at COSTCO. For $1500. So, if you’re going to have a heart problem here at my IHE, do it in the Associate Dean’s office. He really wants to say, “CLEAR!”

I’ll get a certificate. I will not drop the babies, I will not use the AED, I will not try to shove your organs back into you.

But if you’re gonna die, do it up high. Ok? Ok.

Ok, ok, I know EVERYONE is playing poker these days. It’s all so cliched. I learned the play poker from my Dad, who likes to play his law partners. He likes it because he takes their money. I like poker too, though as those of you who read this blog know, I tend to turn pink when I’m excited.

When I started my current job and found that the whole office was a bit poker mad, led by the office manager. The rest of the office often looks to her as a guide for what’s good and right in the world. Her mood sets the office mood. She loves poker and everyone else seemed to fall in line.

Occasionally, we have poker parties at office manager’s house and tonight’s one of them. I go about half the time. The other half the time I beg off or am not invited. It’s sort of like the office Friday lunch. I get invited sometimes but I rarely go. When I do go, I sense that they would have just as soon had me skip it. Honey says I should always make Friday lunch plans. I’m too much of a social goober to do that, but when I do, I am always glad to say that I can’t go. Everyone is so relieved.

A couple of times I’ve been in the final two in the winner take all pot during the poker parties. I’ve never won, however. Inevitably, the person that beat me felt bad about it. It’s not that they feel sorry for me or anything, but I’m the BOSS.

I forget that a lot. People act reluctant to ask for vacation; they defer to me. It can all go to my head. Last week I talked the Assistant Director down from her opinion in the middle of a staff meeting and then realized that I shouldn’t have done it. I apologized to her and am going to try to be more thoughtful about that kind of stuff in the future.

I guess it’s hard to have it both ways. Respect and distance often go hand in hand. I appreciate that they invite me at all, I guess, but wish I were just one of the gang.

I decided to be an academic in part because it struck me as less hierarchical than most jobs. While that is true, I get a little tense around the Dean, a lot tense around the Provost and the President’s presence makes my mouth pasty. I guess I fit somewhere on that food chain and the staff in my office know it, even if I forget it sometimes.

Meanwhile, tonight, I play quietly and carefully and probably lose. And it’s probably best that I do. At least I’m pretty sure they like me enough not to shoot me in the back, even if I have Aces and Eights.