in the meanwhile:

I'm writing my list of films, along with trenchant, witty, and highly useful commentary. It's not ready yet. Maybe tomorrow.

However, I have, since my last post, done the following:

1. had breakfast with a bunch of grandsons and their parents at the historian's daughter's house
2. had linguine and sauce with a bunch of grandchildren and their parents at my house
3. drew with Will and Van
4. painted with Gwen
5. built block houses with all and sundry
6. watched a Jazz game
7. had a wretched finger cut on my mandoline, which is healing but damn, annoying!
8. had pizza at my daughter's house
9. had some poems featured here

and so forth--your general holiday post-Christmas flurry of visiting and delight and exhaustion.

Making new year's plans. Making resolutions. Hoping for Mexican food and a chance to take a look at my manuscript before sending it off to several places before midnight on 12/31. And another movie.

Stay tuned for the movie roundup!

If the semester were a footrace,

it would be a marathon. And I am not even a runner. At all.

Overheard in a Subway in Malad, ID.

The historian: Sometime, I want to take the time to stop at all the museums.

Me: So, like, a museum tour of eastern Idaho?

The historian: . . . there's the one here. And one in Idaho Falls. And the one on the reservation.

Later, passing through Rigby, ID:

The historian: . . . Also, that TV and Pioneer museum.

The people, we are in Idaho.

Should you, too, want to take the All-Idaho, All-Museum tour, this will prove to be an invaluable resource.

Check, check, check. And check.

I have written and posted a syllabus that I believe is a model of the genre.

I have put together the week-by-week schedule that, at this juncture, appears to be an impeccable and thoroughly detailed guide to exactly what we'll be doing in the course, moment by moment. It's like, if Lewis and Clark had a map, but the map was so detailed that it had each shrubbery, pebble, rivulet, and bottle cap (they had those back then, right?) on it, so they could not possibly lose their way. Ergo, therefore, and hence (also the name of my legal representatives), my students will never miss an assignment, a discussion post, a reading, nor will they ever fail to understand the gist of the course. At least, that's how it looks to me right now. In this very swinging moment.

I have developed learning modules, which will contain objectives and writing assignments, readings, links to discussions. (The "will contain" there indicates "work yet to be done," of course.)

I have about 65% or maybe 70% done of the presentation I'll be doing tomorrow at 10:10 a.m. on screencasts (with my colleague Jen C.). For me, 65-70% is like being finished. (Jen C., if you're reading this: kidding! it's all ready! no worries!)

So, I just have to find a few more readings, revise the writing assignments, write the objectives for the modules, create the discussion links. Piece of cake. Piece of crumb cake.

In other news, newly returned son last night came home late and pretty much stayed up all night (albeit noiselessly). I got up at 5 a.m. to take him to the airport, but I couldn't go to sleep till almost 1 because . . . he wasn't home yet. See, this is the problem with being the mom. No matter how much you know that it's not your responsibility to be awake when the kids roll home, sometimes your body will not synch up with that bit of logic. Thus, ergo & hence, I am exhausted. Let's call it a preview for a little featurette we'll call "Spring Semester: Return of the Unsleeping."

TAGS: featurette, preview, exhausted, cake

The birds of Seattle.

We are having a wonderful time in Seattle, to wit:

• we've spent some time at a park down by Pike Place Market where we had a fine time watching birds and the water and people.

"You know what I find kind of touching? young love," said the historian, pointing out a young, obviously in-love couple.

"You're a better person than I am," said I. "I just feel kind of bitter I'm not still young myself."

Later on, though, the historian's daughter told us that all manner of drug deals go on down there.

"Really?" I said, turning to the historian--"so, that young couple you thought was so charming?"

"Probably doing a drug deal," said the historian's daughter, and she ought to know.

• eating good food and seeing a movie and going to the museum and shopping (fruitlessly) and etcetera.

However, the birds of Seattle are not interested in giving me the time of day. You can see what I mean:

We are here!

A few notes:

• the historian and I had a big Irish breakfast
• we are staying just one street off the Liffey
• we are within about ten minutes from the Temple Bar
• we are going to eat at the Mermaid Cafe tonight, if I have my way
• we went to the zoo today
• we are going to rent a vehicle and go west sometime this week.

That is all. Everything is awesome. So far no paintballing or go-karting.