Cold Spaghetti

As if the past week hasn’t been bad enough. Phelm-y cough and stuffed head, sickly lost voice, broken foot (new theory: it wasn’t the toe, it was bone(s?) in the foot… looking more into it later), the new car (which requires lots of foot action to drive), the kids feeling funky, Kate cutting canines, and busy busy busy everything.

Last night, I broke up with my committee chair.

Not that he necessarily got it, but I did do it. One of those post-storm causalities, my mentor, too focused on a new life in another state and disengaged with students here. Overwhelmed by project responsibilities over University ones (the projects are what bring in their salaries… the University pays very little or nothing depending on their contracts). Supportive, yes, but thinking of me, passing on opportunities, offering experiences worthy of my expertise and interests? No, not really. And it’s not fair to expect it from someone who is just not here, physically or mentally. An unexpected post-Katrina reality: life is hard for everyone and some responsibilities get dropped. He’s sticking on for awhile to get me through the next hurdle and then I need a change. Because this program cannot continue this way for me. My education and training will not continue to be post-storm collateral damage.

I’m hoping for support to get through an application process for a Mega Fellowship I’m applying for (due on Thursday) and to get through this defense. (Another application? I must have some deep-set hatred of myself.) But did I mention? I have my FINAL draft written. I finished it on Tuesday and sent it to committee, not that anyone on my committee has looked at it. Although it really is a milestone that I could take a moment to reflect and celebrate upon, truly, I’m too tired to notice.

Commence the shopping for committee members. Are there academic want-ads for this sort of thing?

I am tentatively scheduled (either for this coming Friday or the one following, depending on some faculty travel) to give an open, “formal,” practice prospectus defense…. someone said it may possibly be the first since Katrina? I’m trying to show the Department good faith in my dedication and desire to really be a strong partner in it’s improvement and recovery. And then… then, I really want to sleep for awhile.

It’s not that she can scramble onto the kitchen table is under 5 seconds. It’s that she can do it with her cup of cereal kept perfectly intact.

We are once again a two car family. Sort of.

Remember the renovation to the back of the house we’ve been talking about doing since we bought the house? (In our defense, things like having a kitchen, a bathroom, and electricity took precedence.) Well, we are actually starting to really get started. Maybe not soon but some day in a future I actually can see, we may have another working bathroom. With a bathtub. This is all very exciting.

One of the hang-ups we’ve been having is over supplies. Namely, when we need something — rebar for the concrete project outside, bags of concrete, a couple of 2x4s — we have to borrow a truck or do multiple trips with our wagon, taking all sorts of extra precaution to not trash it. Because we do all this stuff ourselves (or, at least, Paul does it — with the help of folks like my Dad and some of our friends — me, my role is budgeting, research, and planning) we needed some sort of vehicle for this work.

So yesterday, Paul bought a TRUCK. Our previous truck (a purple Ford Explorer named Barney) was a serious work truck and was used as such. It was Paul’s baby (think guy and his TRUCK) and we sold it shortly after moving to NOLA because we didn’t use it enough to warrant keeping it. (Plus, living in Michigan had wreaked havoc on the poor thing.) Although he hasn’t said anything to make me believe it, I think that Paul has felt just the tiniest bit lonely without a truck to bounce around in. So we are doing our best to emphasis the manliness of our new set o’ wheels. (I’ll post pictures later… I don’t want to ruin the imagination.)

We have named the truck “IMPACTO ZERO” (dígalo en español, por favor). It is named after IMPACTO UNO, the most tricked out school bus we’ve ever seen (possibly the most tricked out school bus in the world) — the very bus we took bouncing along the mountains of rural Honduras during the two summers we spent there. (IMPACTO UNO was spelled out in huge letters across the windshield and in back — over the spoilers.) In honor of the Impact Uno, we are going to load up a cassette tape with Gypsy Kings’ “Hotel California,” Cecelia Cruz’s “Yo Vivire,” Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” and lots of Air Supply to blast as we drive Impacto Zero around New Orleans.

I drove Impacto Zero for the first time today. Like all good trucks, I.Z. is a stick shift. The kind where your foot is almost completely disengaged from the clutch before it even thinks about getting into first gear. For those of you who remember my Sweet First Car, a silver 1981 Dodge Aires K Station Wagon loving named Roxanne (think of the Sting song), Impacto Zero is like a long lost brother. When I shift in the I.Z. the handle of the gear shift comes off in my hand. The passenger side door only opens from the inside. The A/C only works when set on “Max.” The fuel gauge is broken (“just fill it up when the odometer reaches 200 miles”). And at least one random dashboard light is on for no reason for the entire ride.

It’s just a tiny pick-up — no backseat. I love driving it, but there is no chance either kid will be going anywhere in it. So, while we are a two car family, only one is actually a family car. This is Paul’s workin‘ truck!

We picked it up for $2750 and are carrying minimal insurance on it; we hope to sell it in a few months when we’re done with the renovation (stop laughing. we WILL finish it!) Other that the few minor oddities, it runs just fine, the engine is beautiful, and there are only 92,000 miles on it. I’ll post pictures soon. Until then, take the opportunity to tell Paul about the coolness of his seriously manly truck.

I bring you the following information from Consumer Reports. Lead is everywhere, existing in a ton of your household goods and children’s playtoys. Love that lead. Here is what they found:

Our lab tests detected lead at widely varying levels in samples of dishware, jewelry, glue stick caps, vinyl backpacks, children’s ceramic tea sets, and other toys and items not on any federal recall list.

Samples of a Fisher-Price blood pressure cuff that is part of a toy medical kit had surface lead in worrisome amounts. Parents should remove this toy from use.

And more on that…

Our tests found high total lead levels in three new samples of a red toy blood pressure cuff from classic Fisher-Price Medical Kits purchased in the New York area and three samples from the homes of employees of the Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

We detected the highest concentration of total lead, more than 10,000 parts per million, in a cuff that a child had regularly played with for the past two years.

Right. Like my kids. Because we totally have this set. The kids LOVE it. When Kate was a baby, Will used to give her daily check-ups.

Why oh why oh why are we still even manufacturing lead??

Self-portraits, decorated wrapping and tissue paper, earrings, paintings, votives, cards, and more graced La Divina on Saturday night. Will’s self portrait is in the middle of the top row, above. When Will told us about making his self portrait (the kids had a full discussion and study of the shapes and colors of their faces before making the pieces) he told us that he has a very LONG head. With each display were detailed documentation about the kids’ process in making each piece.

You can see some the documentation below. (Although the class picture in the center was taken by me in front of the Nix Library a month or so ago.) Will made about 10 pairs of earrings! I bought 5. I thought Will would be thrilled with me wearing his creations… but NO! He keeps telling me that I can’t wear them because he made them “to raise money to buy animals for people who don’t have food.” When I explain that *I* bought them and gave money for them to buy the animals, he gives me a knowing look and says, “no you didn’t.” I wonder if he’ll accept the cleared check as evidence?
We had a great time at the event. We were lucky that Sydney, our old neighbor (whose beautiful Bat Mitzvah we attended two weeks ago) called and asked if she could come over Saturday. So Sydney came along, which meant Paul and I had a break from constant Kate-wrangling. I don’t think I would have been able to take pictures (or enjoy a gelato) had Sydney not been there!

These little paintings were awesome. Will had one called “dark” that our friend, adopted little sister, and Abeona curly-haired sub, Michelle took home.
I loved the cards!
Meanwhile, outside, the kids played. Ana decided she liked the lion outside of the sushi place next to La Divina. She sat on this perch, waving to people (“bye, have a nice night”) as they passed.
Kids, patrons, parents, and more… can you spot Will and Kate?

Will joined Ana on the lion. I heard her whispering to him, “Will, we can stay here forever. We can watch all the people walk by. We can eat all the ice cream we want…” Sounded pretty good to me. Enticed by her offer, or maybe just happy to get away from some of the excitement, Will stayed there for awhile. (Long enough for Emmy and I to giggle at the two of them deep in serious conversation.) Then, when her (totally awesome) boots slipped off, Will jumped down and put them back on her feet. (I was too hit by cuteness overload to negotiate the camera properly and missed the moment.)


Although the kids haven’t decided what animals they are going to purchase yet with their donation, they DID reach their goal… they earned enough to buy a cow!!

The original:

Our version:

Tonight, Kate, you and I had a special talk where I asked you why you are trying to destroy yourself. I used to think that your attempts at destruction were about chipping away at my sanity, following in the lead of your well-practiced brother. But after tonight — when you (for the first time ever) pushed your legs under the table on the table leg so hard that you actually pushed the big wooden chair back on its two back legs and flipped the whole chair on its back with you and your booster seat firmly attached — I no longer believe you’re out to get anyone but yourself.Now that you have successfully thrown your self from two dangerous locales (your Aunt’s stairs and now our kitchen table), I am very worried. These things come in 3s, my superstitious Grandmas taught me, and my instinct says you’re going to give it one more go. At least.

While we had this Very Serious Discussion, you took the opportunity to put your toes in my mouth, fling your body on top of The Cat, and shout “ELMO” four or five times. I could tell you were listening intently as you rarely give that much attention or stay that still. This is not a sarcastic statement.
You are very clear about your likes and dislikes. Something you have decided to like, A LOT, is The Wubba Song. You remind us often of how much that song means to you. Like everytime we are in the car, when you shout “WUBBA!” until we play the song, even if we’ve just heard it 75 times in a row. Or, whenever you break into the study and start climbing things to get to a computer. When we race in the room after you, catching you with one leg on the desk edge perched and ready for the last leap up, you explain the whole event by saying, “Wubba.” You just wanted to watch it on YouTube, that’s all. Your love for Wubba even surpasses your love of The Imagination Movers, which has Daddy and I a bit depressed. (We really like grooving to “I Want My Mommy” and “Clean My Room.”)

You are finally turning the corner from last week’s bought of the Crud. It sucked. We slept very little, as you threw yourself around all night long. You were miserable and shared it well. We felt helpless, holding you tightly to try to keep you still long enough to fall asleep. Working to keep you warm in the cold snap (you refuse blankets), rocking you and walking you around for hours. Please show us some pity for the next few weeks while we catch up on rest.
At the Heifer International fund raiser last night, we discovered that you like gelato. And you like it A LOT. This is a surprise, since previously you’ve turned your nose up at all ice cream and gelato products (except once when you ate some of Dad’s bacio — chocolate hazelnut — gelato). I had a cappuccino gelato in a cone. I wanted you to try it, smashing a bit on your face so that you’d lick it off. To my surprise, you responded by grabbing the cone and licking it with intensity. We tried to scoop some off and let you eat it from a bowl, but you wanted NONE of that. If we so much as TOUCHED the cone, you let out some pretty serious sounds. It is going to take a lot of work to get you through the next couple of years in one piece.

I am constantly trying to get a decent photograph of you and your brother, together, in the same frame, facing the same way, with a fairly pleasant expression on your face. This, The Holy Grail of sibling photography, is as unattainable to me as if it were buried somewhere in Israel with a Templar Knight standing guard. After years of fighting it, Will has resigned himself to the fact that his Mother is a paparazzi, so when asked he generally compiles with simple requests. You, on the other hand, are a blur in most photographs. It is hard on me, as you are changing so much each day and I look to my camera to help hold you still… for just a little bit longer…

Secret monkey moment. I couldn’t hear what Will was whispering to her.

And yes… we FINALLY got them hair cuts!! I’d almost forgotten that Kate had eyebrows and that a comb could, actually, go through Will’s hair.

Click on the flyer for more information!

PS: I get first dibs on the BEAUTIFUL EARRINGS Will made for this event!

A software package created and used by the Center for Disease Control, “the sentinel for the health of people in the United States and throughout the world,” does not work on any laboratory computer, or instructors computer, in the entire School of Public Health at Tulane University. That’s right. The CDC software is non-functional in a School of Public Health.

How do I know? Because I tried to teach an EpiInfo lab to 43 students last night in the SPH computer lab. Apparently, IT staff promises of functioning software (we found similar problems last year and were assured they did not exist this year) do not account for much.

I went to Plan B. We went back to our classroom, where I plugged my laptop up to the podium screen. Students who intended on using their own machines got ready with others piled around them. Then we found that the MyTulane system had corrupted the file (note: the University IT is a mess of Microsoft… if you don’t drink the water, you run into a ton of problems) narrowing our window of working student computers down to about 4. Actually, we’d figure out the corruption problem later. In the meantime, I demonstrated some of the simple commands needed for the assignment, went through the assignment to discuss how to approach the questions (“Plan C”). Then I offered a solution… since it is not reasonable to expect students to do the computations themselves (we can’t trust the lab), I’ll provide a big mess of output and ask them to shift through the tables and use the given information to answer questions and provide support for their answers. Ack.

Upside: Paul had arranged for a babysitter as a treat, picked me up, and took me to La Crepe Nanou for dinner.