Ice cream and french fries.

I had a conversation with my daughter in Louisiana this afternoon. She recounted her Saturday, where the storms were raging and floods were rising--literal floods, this is not a metaphor--and at her place of business, the Saturday was unexpectedly and uncharacteristically busy. And even though she has been working out and eating mindfully, it had been a hard enough day that she decided she would get some ice cream. So she did, and she had had one spoonful before she got out of her car and, in so doing, the ice fell on the pavement. Like, splat. The kind of splat that makes you contemplate the meaning of things.

'So I guess that was the universe saying to me, don't eat that crap,' she concluded.

I think we had a brief moment there, out of respect for the fallen ice cream. And also for the lesson she drew.

Well, America: today the historian and I took one of our grandsons out for a birthday snack. He turned thirteen yesterday, which I think we can all agree is a momentous and historic birthday, one that deserves celebrating with whatever celebratory food the birthday boy designates. 

'Did you have cake last night?' I asked, as we sped toward our destination, the Iceberg Drive Inn, which specializes in burgers and shakes.

'No,' he said, 'I'm kind of taking a break from cake. We had ice cream sundaes. I've gotten tired of cake.'

TIRED OF CAKE? Oh jaded youth. Still, we were headed to the Iceberg for even more ice cream.

He got a cheeseburger and a butterscotch shake. The historian ordered a grilled cheese and some onion rings. I ordered a strawberry shake and fries.

Let me pause to note that one can get a regular size shake, or a mini. The difference in price is approximately sixty cents for your regular flavors--special flavors are extra. I thought to myself, mini? Will a mini be adequate? And also, Carter just got a regular. Do I want to go small? And if the difference in cost is so minuscule, maybe the difference in size is also minuscule. Regular isn't big. Regular is regular.  

And thus, I ordered the regular.

And also, so it came to pass that I ate ice cream and french fries at approximately four in the afternoon. The regular shake, it will not surprise you, was enormous. I shared my fries with great freedom and generosity. The historian had several bites of my shake. But I ate a good portion of it, because it tasted good, and also because there it was, being imposing and simultaneously frozen and potentially melt-y. 

'What would you think if I didn't take the rest of this with me?' I asked the brethren. 'I don't want to keep eating it, but if I take it with me I will.'

'My brothers would love to finish that for you,' said Carter. So we took it with us.

I admit it, I ate a few more bites whilst driving back home. But when we got there, I walked into the kitchen, and there was David, eating his after school snack.

'Do you like strawberry shakes?' I asked.

'I LOVE strawberry shakes,' he replied, fervently. And thus, the burden of the giant ('regular') ice cream was removed from me, and I just had to deal with digesting ice cream and french fries that I had eaten, in effect, as my dinner. 

I think what I am currently feeling is the universe's way of telling me: don't eat that crap. But also: happy birthday to Carter!

Happy birthday to this fine young man, a writer, filmmaker, wit, and a wonderful son, brother and grandson to boot. Birthday cheers to you, Carter--we love you!

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Mar 14, 2016 at 10:39pm PDT

Oh, hey, it's my birthday,

--so last night we ate dinner with Anna and Matt, and this morning we ate pancakes and I opened presents and washed the sheets and went to (birthday) church with my son and graded a little and ate delicious tacos with my kids and chatted to all the children hither and yon--Amelia and Miriam and Evie and Eli and Isaac and Lesley and Will and Van and Mitch and Supriya--and my parents and my niece and so forth, and ate some cake my daughter Sophia baked--it was pink with strawberries, fyi--and just took a walk with Bruiser in the cool night air, nbd. And also I have social engagements forthcoming with Ann and my parents and my auntie!

Am I older? I guess I am. Doesn't much feel like it matters, though. I feel good. I feel lucky for that, and grateful besides.

thanks for the picture, Sophia!

In which I am interpellated by a state apparatus.

I'm discussing the D.M.V., of course.

The people, in seven days it will be my birthday. I'm telling you know so you can start to compose your wittiest birthday wishes for Facebook. Or in person, whichever. Actually, I'm only mentioning my birthday (in seven days) because I'm hoping someone will bring me a cupcake.

NO. In point of fact, I am only mentioning my birthday, which is in one week, because I'm reminding you that I had to renew my driver's license.

Which can send a person into a tailspin, if you ask me, what with the whole memento mori aspect of it all. Yep, you're getting older, tempus fugit, too bad that your diem hath already been carpe'd and soon you're going to die. But not before you have to go to the D.M.V.

Luckily, I have a friend who is extremely in the know, who told me, when I was moaning in this fashion about this very topic last week (on Facebook), that you could make an appointment at the D.M.V.! And it would be super speedy, snappy, and relatively pain free.

Well! I got on the internet and found the fake Driver License website, and then discerned that it was fake when its information was patently archaic, whereupon I found the one true Driver License website. Whereupon I made an appointment and filled out my paperwork online. Whee! Then all that remained was to locate and assemble all the billion documents you need to demonstrate that you are a real person who really is a citizen (or not) and who lives here, in Utah, really, and also that you are not a fake person who just wants to while away her days in the D.M.V. in the hope that she will acquire a Driver License, I guess.

Luckily--and this is huge!--I only had to look five places for the folder that I labed "DOCUMENTS" many many years ago. A folder is one thing, but the real question--I hope you're feeling the suspense--is whether the DOCUMENTS folder had, in all actuality, any documents therein. But it did! I only looked five places--four of them file drawers--found the folder, looked in the folder, and therein I found, and to wit:

• a certified copy of my birth certificate, speaking of memento mori
• a copy of my Social Security card 

If I had needed to, I'm certain I could have rustled up my passport. But I didn't need to, according to the instructions on the website, which were clear-ish on this topic. Even so, I brought a recent bank statement, just in case.

So here's how it goes: you walk into the D.M.V. with your documents in your hand. (You will already have wrestled with yourself about whether you will wear and/or display your reading glasses, which you do not wear to drive--you will conclude that honesty is the best policy, you don't after all wear them to drive, but you do in fact need them to read.) You scan the room and find the sign that says:

If you have an appointment, 

check in here.

 So you'll walk over and check in. They will then send you to the woman who takes the pictures. She will persuse your documents and stamp them and instruct you to sit in the chair, then look at the camera. "You'll see a flash," she says, helpfully. Which you will. She'll give you a number and you'll go wait in a chair for about 90 seconds before they call your number.

You'll talk to the guy and he'll be extra friendly. "Delaware," he'll offer, as a conversation starter. "The only state we see less than Delaware is Rhode Island."You'll chat about this, and then about the reading glasses, and then you'll take the eye test, which you may actually have dreamed about the night before. You'll lean your head against the machine, which will light up the screen. Yeah, you'll think, those letters on the left side are kind of ... flickery? Then you'll realize that you can't fidget. Your head has to lean up against the machine with steady pressure. Once you realize this, the letters on the left will swim into place, and you'll read the letters on the top row like a boss. Or well enough, anyway, because you'll get the license.

The guy will print out your temporary license. He'll punch a hole in your old one. You'll look at your new picture and reflect that you look simultaneously exhausted, truculent, startled, and--inescapably--older.

And this will temper your sense of triumph that you're walking out of the D.M.V. precisely ten minutes after you walked in.

Oh, hello there.

Today I was at Whole Foods buying overpriced, well, everything. Happily, because there's nothing I like better, frankly. Not the overpriced-ness of it all, but the Whole Foods-ness of it all. What can I say? I just like the aroma of virtue all up in there. The eggs. The sugar. The super-expensive vanilla paste. Happy happy happy.

Not my point, however. My point is this: I got to the cashier, loaded my precious commodities onto the conveyer belt, got the total and wrote a check (hi! I'm old.), whipped out my driver's license before the cashier could even ask for it, and then I heard, faintly, as I was putting my pen back in my purse, a voice say, "This is about to expire."

I was all, now what's that? and thought maybe that was some other cashier speaking to some other patron, the way you think, are you talking to ME? when you hear honking nearby when you're driving. I looked up at him. He had my driver's license between his thumb and finger, ready for me to pluck and stow. And I was all, Right. Dammit.

Because he's right: my driver's license is about to expire. Like, at the end of the month. When it is my birthday.

This set in motion a series of mental events:

1. Where is that stuff the D.M.V. mailed me three months ago?
2. Probably in my study.
3. --but where in my study, exactly?
4. Wait: do I have to take a test? Because I don't want to be taking no test.
5. Eeek, what about an eye test!?
6. What should I wear? The last time I got my license renewed, I had new badass boots. What now? What outfit and/or accoutrements will protect me in my hour of need?

...and so forth. 


Like the rest of America, I dread the D.M.V., the people. I'm pretty sure you know the reasons why:

1. crowded.
2. stressful.
3. possible failure putting a critical American survival ability in doubt.
4. what if my eyes have crossed over from just needing reading glasses to needing actual glasses? and I didn't even realize it?

...and so forth.

Well, onward. At least I got some work done today before the bureaucratic state intervened to loom all over my happy bourgeois activities. Leave me alone, bureaucratic state, while I make a frittata and sulk!

Happy belated birthday to my blog!

I only just now realized that last week was my blog's birthday. On March 4, 2005, I wrote my very first blog post, and thus a highly unremunerative yet also highly satisfying endeavor was born.

I really didn't plan anything, but if we consider today my blog's birthday party, here's what we did to celebrate:

Alexander Johnson, "A press gang seizing a waterman"

• wrote a proposal for a book chapter. After the sweat was dry, I
• went to breakfast with my son and had an omelet and toast. Thus fortified, I
• met with one of my all-time favorite students to discuss digital storytelling, etc., and then I
• met with one of my all-time favorite colleagues to discuss how to press-gang someone into taking his place as a faculty leader next year, and who that someone might be (look out, people! I will be e-mailing YOU!). Having assembled that list of names, I
• took a bunch of notes and turned them into a table in preparation for my
• next meeting, which involved developing a work plan so that we could have fewer meetings--genius! After that,
• I met with my colleague to finalize the proposal and send it off. Feeling free as a professor on spring break, I
• went to Target and bought pretzels, Perrier, shampoo, almond M&Ms in Easter colors, and a pair of white jeans. And a couple of spring break magazines.

My trip to Target. For my blog's birthday, obviously.

 I drove home then, to

• submit my manuscript to two competitions and to
• decide our evening plans, which were 
• to eat Indian food and 
• watch House of Cards.

That's quite a party, don't you think?

Dearest blog, I am sorry there was no cake, but happy eighth birthday anyway--over spring break, I hope to spend a little more time with you.

happy birthday.

Today is my youngest son's birthday.

And also the day when he had ACL reconstruction surgery.

So he, the historian, and I spent today at a hospital in Park City, where his surgeon prefers to do this particular surgery. As days spent in hospitals go, it wasn't bad. Of course the historian and I weren't the ones getting surgery.

We drove up the mountain first thing in the morning, got him checked in, then had conversations with many, many medical personnel, all of whom seemed smart and competent and great. All of us agreed that it was the left knee that had the ACL problem, an agreement that was cemented by the surgeon writing "yes" on that knee. It's kind of amazing what's possible these days, surgery-wise. I myself have never had any surgery of any kind, so I'm just an observer, but the fact is, there are splendid techniques and technologies in pain management, anesthesia, surgery, and recovery. I appreciated these techniques and technologies as we sat in a consulting room with my son, laying on a gurney in a hospital gown, cracking jokes, as one after another medical person came in to discuss this and that aspect of his ACL, the surgery, and the upcoming recovery.

And then, his knee thoroughly shaven and scribbled upon, the anesthesiologist wheeled him out, and we set about waiting.

We had some food in the cafeteria. We sat by a roaring fire (only one of several lovely amenities at this hospital, including a harpist in the main lobby, which was both lovely and possibly a little hilarious?). I had imagined that I might grade while I was waiting, a notion I should have dismissed from the outset. I did read a few e-mails. Tried not to worry. But of course, I worried.

We were called back into the consulting room to talk with the doctor. He showed us this:

[knee cap]

[knee cap/femur]

[medial]

[lateral]

These are pictures taken by the scope, I guess, various views of the pristine parts of his knee--all the parts, in fact, except for the Anterior Cruciate Ligament. To me, they look like views of far-off moons, or planets. 

When the nurses wheeled him back in, they had already sung him "Happy Birthday," and he was making everyone laugh. "Hello, party people," he called to us from the hall, before we could even see him. He's downstairs right now with friends, holding court, his knee in a massive brace and elevated on pillows, so that it's higher than his heart.

Happy birthday, Walker. Wishing you a great year and a speedy recovery, and full use of your knee in a basketball league by next fall.

Great day.

Deacon and his brand new baby sister, Gwenyth Pearl.

Posted with Blogsy

Happy birthday to Van!

The first Monday.

On the first Monday of the new school year, I worked away at my online courses. I added stuff and linked more stuff. Indeed, the linking has made my courses more webbier than ever. Is this a good thing? Time will tell.

Tonight was soft taco night. Soft taco night has come into being because it is a dish that all the people who eat at this house can agree on. Spaghetti used to be a dish like that. But my son, who came up in a family of spaghetti eaters, is no longer playing ball. I would like to say that there are other bi-partisan dishes around here, but maybe not.

Am I the only one who feels like this election might kill her? Literally kill? I will say no more, but I think you can tell I'm not very happy right now.

This afternoon, I bought a watermelon. It's that time of year when you start thinking, I better drink all the lemonade, or This may be the last watermelon of summer. And while it doesn't sound particularly poignant, I felt a little poignant as I thumped around the watermelon bin, looking for a good one to play the part of the Last Watermelon.

Because our early summer was so travel-ish, I didn't get around to planting very many things, not until later in the summer, and there wasn't very much I wanted to plant that was still sitting around in pots in the Garden Shop at Smith's Marketplace. I hate when that happens. All that's left are sad, leggy marigolds and bedraggled petunias. But there was heaps of basil and lemon verbena, so that's what I planted. I have picked the flowers off a hundred different basil stems, to keep them going. In the heat, they look a little wilted, but every morning, there they are, leaves green and glossy, and casting forth yet another purple flower. I hear that flowering makes the basil leaves bitter. I run my fingers over the leaves, or pinch off another blossom, the fragrance on my skin.

Walked early, walked late. Finished my novel, which was good but too sad.

 is how old I will be this week. What is good about fifty-five? maybe a lot of things. This week, I will be on the lookout for these good things.

Saturday.

beginning with a super moon coming in and out of the clouds

soccer on a rather chilly morning,

a birthday party

with a bounce house!

a previous outing to pick out a birthday present (a hex bug)

festive!

Happy belated birthday.

It's my blog's birthday--turning seven years old this month. That's 1472 posts and 60,000 (and change) page views (only about 30% of which are probably mine, from when I was constantly refreshing to see if anyone had left any comments).

Here's my very first post. And here are a few of my personal favorites:

Open letter to my bed: "Oh my darling clementine, my bed, you are, at the end of a day like today one of the brightest ideas ever to issue forth from the mind of humankind."


The historian quotes scripture: "Historian: Slow to anger and quiet as an . . . owl? And wise as . . . a goat."


Open letter to my proclivity for complaint: "The barbarians are at the gate, and by God, they eat off dirty dishes, the ones that were supposed to be clean."


Me and Almost Famous had brunch together: "Also, Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous looks almost exactly the same as I did in my yearbook picture, junior year."


California sketches: "Also, [my] quick-witted friend, the birthday girl, happens to know where cake is to be obtained."

To the desert:  "I am thinking about diversion a lot, because I realize, what I've been seeking to be diverted from is my life, my actual life."


Like a heartbeat baby trying to wake up: "Sometimes, this little bit of the song keeps me awake at night, because I myself need something more sub sub sub substantial."


Muffin, I presume: "A muffin is not a cupcake. It is a quick bread, which means that, categorically, it has more in common with the scone, the biscuit, the rusk, than it does with any form of cake. It is a wholesome food, falling on the plain side of the plain/fancy spectrum."


Without peer: "Yes, the people, I was brought to tears over a Coke in a west side Mexican restaurant because my husband offered to take me to the mall."


Clam chowder: requiem for a dream: "There it sat, looking like the paragon of chowder, clam-filled and potato-y and even a little creamy. Why was it so nasty? Why?"


Thanks, everyone, for reading along with me all these years. 

Key facts.

• My favorite kind of reading glasses

routinely break like brittle china.

• Ergo, I order a pile of them. So I have more when they break. Perhaps I should consider a new style/brand/Lasik? I don't know. They are my favorite.
• It is the historian's birthday today. He has a cold. Is that fair? I ask you.
• We are watching the Australian Open. Rod Laver and Roger Federer are talking. It's kind of great.
• My classes were awesome today. Sometimes it feels like, if you set things up right, your courses turn into little centers of industry, with all kinds of good things happening, humming along. Or, y'know, things could fall apart tomorrow. But I don't think so.
• Today this book arrived at my house: 

Vatnasafn/Library of Water
Roni Horn

it is awesome.

• Even though it was a birthday, it was a work day. Where is the birthday cake? I ask you. I guess that's why birthdays last a week. They do, don't they?
• Okay. Time to get you a little more DayQuil, honey.

(happy birthday to the historian, the best of the best of the best, sir! he is above the system, and he makes it--everything--look good.)

Today

was my birthday, so I

• acknowledged to myself that I am old(er) with a small but private and very limitedly miserable sulk, then
• opened birthday presents from the historian,
• wept over a sweet note from my oldest friend and a sweet note from my dad, after which I
• ate a birthday custard,
• took a quick birthday trip to Target (what. That's totally a thing.), and
• took a birthday trip to work that lasted a lot of hours, where I
• had a birthday interview with a student candidate for the editor of the literary/arts mag, then
• received a phone call wherein my grandson sang me "Happy Birthday," whereupon I
• spent a birthday hour in the Student Writing Center, whence I gave birthday help to a student, after which I
• fretted over a birthday lesson plan and a birthday grammar & style activity, and then
• taught, after the birthday fretting, a great birthday grammar & style class! I then
• ate my birthday sandwich and birthday potato chips, and drank my birthday Dr. Pepper, with my friend, while concurrently
• doing my birthday office hours online; then I
• went home before having a
• birthday taco and watching a
• birthday movie with the historian.

In conclusion, birthday birthday birthday! BIRTHDAY, oh yeah.

Weekend stats.

Peaches: 16, from two vendors.

Nectarines: 3 exorbitantly priced ones, from our fruit guy, who has a very high opinion of his fruit in general, and his nectarines in specific.

Movies: 1, unless you count watching A Few Good Men on AMC for the zillionth time, in which case: 2. Wait! also significant portions of The Misfits on TCM, because it was Montgomery Clift day, which we watched while laying around this afternoon and also reading portions of a Swedish mystery novel.

Pants purchased on sale at the Gap: 4 pair, cute if I do say so myself.

Successful technology challenge sorted: new charger for my Macbook Pro, which was (I bet you can guess this:) failing to charge.

Dollars spent to sort technology challenge: 0. That is "zero." That's because of the brilliant Apple Store Genius, Tomasi, who figured out, I guess, that my charger was still warrantied, or something? Anyway, Tomasi was awesome. Tomasi is a solutions provider.

Syllabi finished, worked on, or started: 0. That is also "zero." I have no further comment to make on this point.

Fantastic culinary adventures: 1. I made harissa, to go with roasted potatoes omg it was aMAzing. It was for my poetry group.

Birthday girls who ate pancakes with us: 2. At Dee's! --a brief panegyric on Dee's: unpretentious; full of cheerful folk but still with a table to be had, without any waiting whatsoever; with the best hash browns I've had in quite some time, and, judging from the several bits I stole from one birthday girl's chocolate chip pancakes, with an excellent chocolate chip pancake.

Rating, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "hideous" and 10 being "stellar," of the weekend overall, thus far: pretty much perfect.

My agenda.

1. Grade.

2. Lunch with birthday boy grandson.

3. Consult with 3 students.

4. Grade.

5. Scavenge dinner.

6. Grade.

7. The Office.

8. 30 Rock.

9. Walk the dog.

10. Grade.

TAGS: tedious

It doesn't make more sense than this.

I finished a week of reading portfolios, writing comments, and conferring with students. It snowed yesterday, great flying flakes that melted within hours. My son is--I think--in Malaysia. Some of my family are moving house. I have too many shoes. We had Indian food tonight--pakoras and saag and kofta and naan. A couple of nights ago, I woke up out of a dream which featured both George Clooney and some strippers. In my mind the semester is already over. If not actually over, then "over." It might snow tomorrow. I am going to sleep until I wake up tomorrow. The Jazz beat the Clippers without Okur or Brewer, and with Kirilenko injured. We saw Stop-Loss tonight. I have a New York Times waiting for me to read it. My offices, both at school and at home, are barely organized chaos. I am now officially behind in my online class. Two little girls in Scotland are wearing tee shirts I bought them, one with a pink kitty and another with a striped French chicken. We are thinking of going to Ireland in the fall. Starting April 1, Dr. Write and I are going to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. I have lettuce seeds and pea seeds that I'd better plant if I'm going to. Today is Jerry Sloan's birthday. Happy Birthday.

Bonne anniversaire to the historian.

Here are ten of my many birthday wishes to the historian:

1. that the most progressive possible Democrat wins the nomination, and then the White House.

2. that someone in his life gets it together to create a calmer, gentler, less chaotic household.

3. that he gets plenty of nice days to take a bike ride. Soon.

4. that when we show up to eat out, the restaurant has excellent, innovative vegetarian options.
5. that the grandkids give him doughnuts for a birthday present.*

6. that the good health he deserves for living so well and so mindfully be his in full measure.

7. that we have many gatherings with the whole family this year at our house.

8. that his clothing be sweatshop-free.

9. that he will take the opportunity to turn up the volume when he plays jazz on the stereo.

10. that bluebirds sing when he walks by, flowers nod at his passing, and fish leap from the river, because he is so swell.

Happy birthday!

*Mission accomplished--the grandsons chose a box of doughnuts to give to their Papa.

Philosophical exchange.

(On KCPW Tuesday night--Jonathan Goldstein was talking to people on the radio about I don't know what--paranoia, I think--when this bit came up:)

Guy talking to Jonathan Goldstein: So I said to everyone that I didn't believe in God at all. And then I felt that perhaps God might not like that--that he might be listening and that what I said might have made him mad.

Jonathan Goldstein: [pause.] That's not exactly a typical thought for an atheist.

Guy: [laughs] Well, you can't really be sure, can you.

In other news. Car watch: old, old car still at GMFC; projected date for car to be out of the shop, according to GMFC: "I hope by the end of this week." !!!!!

Days till missionary running son leaves for Singapore, via Provo: 38.

Tomorrow? his 19th birthday. There will be cake. There will be candles. There will be a celebration and a hullaballoo.

Happy, go figure.

It's probably bad luck to talk about it this way, but I have been rolling from one good thing to another lately, it seems like, and I can't help it, I just feel happy. A list, in no particular order:

1. Saw two good movies last weekend, Rocket Science and No End in Sight. (not that the latter is a day at the park, of course)
2. Had an excellent writing group at my house, wherein I baked my first madeleines in my new madeleine pan, and also made a lovely roasted eggplant spread to go on crostini and the killer iced tea I've been making all summer. And I finished a draft of a new sestina. And the group mostly liked it.
3. We cleaned up the house, and I did a rather large-scale cleaning up of the kitchen, including throwing away ancient bottles of sesame oil and so forth from the refrigerator.
4. My online and face-to-face classes seem to be going just swell.
5. I love my children and they are all awesome and amazing people.
6. My husband the historian is a prince among men (the "prince" appellation must be taken as a metaphor, since, as a committed leftist, he probably wouldn't select this term for himself. Although he is discursively flexible, one of his many, many fine traits. Also, he's cute.).
7. My dogs are gorgeous and of excellent character.
8. The weather isn't so infernally hot. It's cool-ish at night and in the morning.
9. It's my birthday week, as my friend Jen reminds me, and even if I am turning fifty, it feels okay. Good, even.

Happy to be alive. Hope you're having a good week, too.