Travels

I've been traveling so much this spring (and it doesn't seem to let up this summer) that the blog has really suffered. Maybe when we get settled in MA, it will become a priority again. Well, I'm pretty sure it will, since some of you actually seem to care what we do with ourselves. Anyway, we have been on the road this past week, visiting family and friends in AR. Unfortunately, while we took many photos of family, we somehow managed to forget to pull out the camera while catching up with old friends, something I regret. I am also regretting the number of times we've past through this state over the past few years and did not make an attempt to visit so many of you who are here year round. One of the many things I love about Facebook is that it's given me the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and better keep up with those that we've remained in touch with over the years. And it made it possible to actually see IRL several of you during this trip. Despite poor planning we managed to catch up with Bob & Sarah, Cindy and Eric, Jennifer & Ilya, and Trent & Sarah Beth and their respective families as well as Elise and Neil. Jason, Nora and I had a wonderful time seeing you all again! Here's a few pics from the first half of our journey:






On the way home, we're hoping to squeeze in a quick visit to the Ozark Folk Center - another crying shame that we haven't made it there in all these years of going back and forth.

Arkansas Songbirds

I saw this on the Arkansas State Parks Facebook fanpage, this commercial is in the semi-finalist round and honestly I've fallen for it (yeah, I know it's a Folger's ad), anyway, I love it. Give them a listen and vote if you can. The first singer is the receptionist at the Ozark Folk Center and a recent transplant from KC. While she didn't plan on singing for an audience, the folk center got her into it (she's got a few video's on You Tube - Ruby Pine and the Old Saps). I don't know how the commercial came about, but I love it. Maybe it's the chickens, def. her voice, but also that nostalgic 70's feel. And of course the AR connection makes me want them to win even more.

Double the Grandparents, Double the Fun

From the Arkansas Trip:


Nora's first fish

Under the waterfall at Garvin Gardens

On the boat
Driving the boat

More Delta

All my musings in the last post reminded me of one of my favorite songs by a Delta artist - it's stuck with me since the first time I heard it. Although most people probably associate Al Green with Memphis, he's actually from Forrest City, AR.



Home Again, Home Again

We're home, exhausted and ready to stay put for awhile, but home. I finished out our final days of the trip fighting a stomach bug (either food poisoning or a stronger version of Nora's ick) and we did a marathon drive from Port Aransas to Hot Springs - 13 hours in the car straight, including a very, very, very long haul through Houston at rush hour. Nora did very well, and Jason and I survived, although we're still recovering. We spent the two nights with Jason's parents, so they got a good look at Nora and then we headed home on Sunday.

One of the things that really made itself clear in my mind after this trip is how little bragging rights Texas really has. Basically, anything good that state has managed to hold on to is due to the work of a bunch of little old ladies, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (both Kathy and Grant are members). While I might not agree with them on everything, I am happy that they are working on preserving whatever they can get their hands on. Everything else, I think the state would be happy to sell off to developers. And they are worse than the city of STL when it comes to signage. I mean, really, I know your a big state, but would it kill you to tell us how far away it is to the next BIG city? There are only signs showing what's 20 miles down the road. When you are traveling for 10 hours in Texas you sort of want to know how far away you are from Houston, Dallas, Austen, San Antonio and Corpus, not necessarily all of them, just the major city that is on the highway you are traveling on - really, would it kill you to tell us? Oh and side of the road picnic areas suck too. At least you have some plaques.

So listen up Arkansas, I don't want to hear anymore of your sad sack stories about your inferiority complex with your big neighbor Texas. Arkansas can run rings around Texas and every other neighboring state (as well as many others) in the state park arena. While Illinois is shutting down state parks, you are opening them! Building new ones! Arkansas has it goin' on. Texas, not so much - the state park we visited on Mustang Island (8$ entry fee) was sad, sad, sad. Facilities from the 60's, falling down and closed up, no brochures, basically, this state's facilities look like they haven't had an update since the Johnson administration (same goes for those visitors centers), and given that they've had two presidents since then to funnel some money back to them, this is pathetic.

Okay, I'm done with that rant. Bye now.

ACORN

As most of you know, Jason and I worked for ACORN for several years back in the 90's. It was a chaotic experience that had its ups and downs. Some of you have been wondering what we think about all the allegations about ACORN from the McCain campaign. In short, we are appalled. We both worked voter registration at various times during our employment and can assure you we never saw ACORN promoting Voter Registration Fraud (something quite different from Voter Fraud, which has more to do with getting false people to vote or to vote twice). In Arkansas, as in many states, you are required to turn in every single voter registration card, even if you think it might be a fake registration. Sometimes people who you hire for campaigns like this are more interested in getting paid than in registering people to vote, so they fill out forms falsely. Those folks were fired, when they were discovered. Sometimes, people think it's funny to give blatantly false names on the card, and some people wanted to disrupt the process, so they did this on purpose. In any case, where we could identify forms that looked suspicious, we would set them aside and turn them in with a note to the county that we thought that they were false. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone knows the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys, so I'm sure there were some that got past us. It was not in our interest to register non-existent people - the purpose was to register real people, to encourage them to become involved in our civic process and to turn them out on election day - which is what the McCain campaign is really worried about it. The rich and elite in this country have benefited from low voter turn-out and suppressed civic engagement. If we really wanted these things and if they were really concerned about false registrations, they would make registration mandatory and automatic for citizens like many other countries do. Here's a nice video done by ACORN to set the record straight, it's only a few minutes long so check it out:



BTW, I'm proud to say that because of ACORN training, myself and several other women have been working over the past year to promote civic engagement in adult ed classrooms in the metro area - and we registered some folks to vote too. We've passed the deadline for registration in this state, but if you are registered, please make sure to go and vote. It's important.

Old Home Weekend

Our first trip without Nora was really quite fabulous. Although leaving was difficult. I tried really hard not to cry, and failed miserably. But I cheered up on the drive down. The weather was lovely, although it was much more humid in AR in in STL. We made it in good time even though we stopped at the Dixie Cafe for our obligatory sides of veggies and giant glasses of diet coke.

in front of the Dixie Cafe

When we arrived, Jason and I felt like visiting dignitaries at Hendrix. They put us up in the visiting professors apartment (Thanks Sarah!), he got an honorarium, free meals in the cafeteria (possibly the only place on Hendrix that is still recognizable from our era), and there was a lovely reception after the reading of the play and Q&A with Bob and Jason.

Posters!
The orange post-it is a parental advisory for adult content and language warning

The reading of the play was really fun. Thrillingly, I got to sit between the director and the playwright and while there was at least one point when we were the only ones laughing our heads off, for the most part, the rest of the audience seemed to think it was funny too. It was really something to hear the actors reading the words Jason wrote although sort of disconcerting too. Many of you are familiar with aspects of this play - Jason had been thinking about it since we were at Hendrix, and while it changed and improved over time, there are still elements that are recognizable from conversations we've had. But seeing it up there, with people who traveled miles and put a lot of time into making it happen, made it a really amazing experience. When I read it all the way through for the first time last week, I really liked it, but I wasn't sure if I liked it because I love Jason and I know Jason, and while I know people think he's funny, I hoped that the other parts of the play would come through too. I think that they did ultimately and while I know Jason wants to make some changes, I don't think that much really needs to be changed because it works. When the audience is laughing so hard that they are missing the next joke, that's a good thing right? Crowning it all was the Q& A with Jason and Bob fielding questions about the play from the audience. I could tell Jason was having the time of his life and that it was made even sweeter by Bob's and Sarah's participation in project.

Bob and Jason in Q & A

Cast, Director and Playwright

center. After sleeping in the next morning we checked out the campus. I think the thing that surprised me the most, was that despite that there is a new building every 20 feet, it still feels like home. I'll try to post pictures of how things have changed, but for those of you who haven't kept up, there is of course the new library, constructed just after we graduated, but also there are 2 new science buildings (Buhler and Reynolds still exist, the new ones are behind Reynolds and the other has taken the place of the former library), a new recreation center, including new sports fields and a pool with a retractable roof ( this is across the street from Couch in the East Hall/Mabee Center/Track area), several new dorms/residential housing (in the former soccer field behind Couch), the new Murphy Building (where Sarah works and where we were housed - it sits between Hulan/Campus Center and Reynolds - now called Axiom), and a new student and technology center is being built as in the former location of Grove. They were breaking ground on the Hendrix Village across the street, which will be retail and apartments serving both the community and the campus. Oh and they spruced up the Campus Center several years ago, but I think it and the cafeteria will soon be relocated into the new Student and Technology building. With the exception of East Hall/Mabee Center and the old Library, all of the other building are still standing and in use. Surprisingly some of them look much more attractive now - Buhler has been covered in vines and is actually quite fetching. There has also been a great deal of landscaping done with new gardens and a labyrinth out behind Trieschmann (I think there was a sculpture garden there before). Also missing is the WWI memorial, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been relocated.

Beautified Buhler

You would think all of this construction would render the campus unrecognizable and incredibly busy, but it really doesn't - you sort of are surprised when a building pops up where it wasn't before, but they fit in with the other buildings (despite being very large ones) and it doesn't really feel that crowded. We ate breakfast on campus, which gave us more surprises. While the cafeteria looks almost exactly the same (they have added some strange faux foliage and nice vinyl tablecloths), there have been some changes for the better.

same but different - odd addition of plastic foliage

There are now clearly marked, multiple, vegetarian and vegan(!) options. For breakfast there were eggs, bacon, sausage, veggie bacon, vegan sausage, 3 make your own omelet stations, a waffle station, gravy, vegan gravy, biscuits, vegan biscuits, grits, oatmeal, and lots of fruit, toast, bagels, and other breakfast breads.

blueberry waffle - note the new tablecloths

At lunch & dinner, I am told there is always an express meal bar with burgers (including veggie burgers)/other fast food sort of stuff, a build your own sandwich/panini bar as well as the regular lunch fare which includes meat, vegetarian, and vegan items. You can see weekly menus here. Oh and they have a frozen yogurt machine, which unfortunately couldn't be transported to Mills/Cabe for the reception, but was fabulous to see, nevertheless. I admit that I don't think I ever made it to breakfast while I was at Hendrix, so I can't really compare, but the vegan gravy rocked.

The rest of our visit included visiting with Jess and Sam and Eli at the Oyster Bar in Little Rock (I'm happy to say that the Oyster Bar is still as glorious as it always was - as was our company). We did a fast tour of the Clinton Museum, which I found interesting from a museum design perspective, the content probably would have been more interesting to me on another day, but I lived through all of that, and wasn't really in the mood to do it all over again. The museum is high on detail, which I liked, and found at times overwhelming and at other times, charming - I especially enjoyed the menus from several state dinners and the binders with all of Bill's daily schedules throughout his presidency. But unless you are a HUGE fan of Bill, I really cannot recommend paying the additional 3$ for the audio tour, which is just him talking on and on.

in front of the Clinton Library

On the way back to Conway we dodged the numerous mini-tornadoes spilling out from Ike to the southeast and northwest of us and fortunately made it back a Hendrix that still had power. After dinner with Bob, Sarah and Zelda and a nice visit and cookie making/eating, Jason and I returned to our apartment around 10:00, just in time for Hendrix to begin their evening festivities - Ike or no Ike. Despite our close proximity to the campus center dance and the high winds and rain, Jason and I slept through the night easily - I think it was the best sleep I've had since I was pregnant with Nora. While the campus looked a little wind blown the next morning (more fabulous vegan gravy for breakfast) and there were many downed limbs there didn't appear to be too much damage. Miraculously, the rain and winds went directly north and not north-east so we had a clear drive home on Sunday. It was a fun trip, but I was so ready to see Nora who was , of course, just fine without us all weekend and barely said hello when we came and got her.

Here we are in our matching Hendrix Media Center tees. Thanks Bob!

Return to Posting

It's been forever since I've posted (as no doubt you've noticed) and since someone recently brought that to my attention, I thought I'd better do a roundup of what we've been up to.

Possibly the biggest news is that Jason has finished the big D and will be defending it on August 21 at 10:00 am. I'm so proud of him for finishing! And you all put that day down on your calendar to send him good vibes at the 10:00 hour. Fortunately, he doesn't have to sit in a Colosseum and wait for anyone and everyone in the university to come challenge him, but it's still a big deal.

Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Arkansas to see Jason's family and make sanity pit- stops at Bob and Sarah's on the way in and out. Hendrix is a monster that is slowly taking over all of Conway (which is rushing out at the seams anyway). The amazing news is that you get get a beer in Conway now. Yeah, I know we always could, but in a restaurant as opposed to a dorm or open field/warehouse. Like Fayetteville and Jonesburo, Conway has now authorized "private clubs" to sell liquor. So for a $5.00 membership fee, there you go. We had a nice time in Hot Springs, soaking up all the heat and sunshine that St. Louis had been missing and made a quick trip to Magnolia to see Jason's grandmother. All in all we logged over 24 hours in car time, and discovered both that Nora gets car sick and that Dramamine is our friend. Bob, Sarah and Zelda were all in fine fettle and we enjoyed the fabulous Mexican food of La Hacienda (of Conway not Hot Springs) which could only be improved with them getting a private club license, but probably not likely since they are not downtown. We even managed to squeak in not one but TWO trips to Dixie Cafe (one of the few places where Jason doesn't need 5 refills of his coke before the meal comes).

Once we made it back home, we were greeted by the return of the rainy season, that seems to be lasting all spring and into summer. We were rained out of a picnic with Todd and Natascha at the Shakespeare festival's Richard the III, although we bravely tried to sit out a full hour in light showers, before we realized that it really wasn't going to stop. Jason, Nora and I made a mad dash to Kansas City for me to do a work related training, but we also got to sample some excellent Mexican Food and Nora got to swim in the hotel pool. Nora and Jason checked out the KC zoo while I did my training.

Despite all of the rain, Nora and Jason have been active. Checking out the zoo, parks, and science center weekly in addition to their Gym and Swim class at the Y. Nora did her first somersault and has been enjoying the water, especially since holding on to Jason means she doesn't have to interact with all those other children.

That brings us up to date, and since we head to Chicago this weekend to visit Miriam, Andreas, Anouk and Christophe, you'll have to wait for photos for when we get back.

Spunk Lost and Found?

Carol has been complaining lately of a lack of blogging spunk and apparently it is a problem over here as well. I can't complain about a complete lack of activity, because, actually November has had plenty, which may be why I've done so little blogging.

We returned Sunday from our trip to Arkansas for Thanksgiving which was a bit of an exhausting drive and required more luggage than a debutante's tour of European capitals. But Nora got to see her grandparents again, and Jason's grandmother, Grant was up from Texas and Max was down from Bentonville. Nora had a great time re-arranging Kathy's rock tray and bowling walnuts, and practicing her piercing shrieks among people who find it endearing. Jason and I took advantage of the free babysitting to eat a meal together (as opposed to in shifts between Nora chasing) and to check out downtown Hot Springs and marvel at the changes that have occurred since our Little Rock residency. Happily, the fabulous toy store is still there and we had a great time buying too much stuff for Nora (musical instruments, kitties, and a music box). For those who care, the Arlington now has a Starbucks and they've done some redecorating so it's not quite so bright in the lobby. Oh, and there was some football game between the Razerbacks and LSU, I'm told it was quite a game, but it's really not my thing.

We took a little side detour to Conway to see Bob, Sarah and Zelda. They ministered to our need for a place to unwind and an audience to vent about the horrors of travel and holidays with family. Zelda kindly played big sister with Nora and let her touch and play with all of her toys (even the horses and unicorns) and read stories to her and prevented her from destroying the house while Jason and I languished on the couches and made Bob and Sarah entertain us with stories. It was very restorative. Hendrix has grown by leaps and bounds and I learned that there are actually two new mascots - one with a sword and one with a banner not sure that one is that much of an improvement over the other.

Now we're home again and December looms in front of me. I actually do have some Christmas spirit this year and while that doesn't translate into putting up a tree (we really don't have any room). I did get an advent calendar for Nora (it came yesterday and no, I didn't pay that much for it) and I think there is some serious baking in my future (I've got the whole Veginomicon to get through!). The Rock N' Roll craft show is this weekend and while I know I will be shopping I also hope it inspires some more craft activities. Unfortunately, I didn't really have an opportunity to work on Nora's stocking this break and my mom has made a lovely one for her already, so I might not get it done, but I had so much fun with the felt food, that I'm hoping I get another project underway soon.

Arkansas

Last week we were in Arkansas visiting the Grandparents.

We took Karl, because somehow it seemed easier at the time. Nora loved talking to him on the way down, and the grandparents are fond of him too. We all got out on the boat as evidenced here. Nora was a good egg about the floatation device she had to wear, but was less thrilled about having to remain on our lap.




We eventually relented, and let her peak over the edge....












But we both remained ever vigilant, should anyone fall in the water.








And she got to drive the boat with the Captain.

We all made it back to shore safe and sound!

Bridge 87

Dad and Jack just returned from their visit down south this weekend. They re-visited parts of some trips that Jason and I did with Mom and Dad two winters ago and also during the time we lived in Arkansas, checking out Oxford, MS and parts of southeast Arkansas around McGee. But this time the two of them were also searching for some places where they spent a summer while their Dad, my grandfather, was working on Bridge 87 near Watson, AR. They never did get to the bridge - the spring rain had left the old road impassable. But later at the hotel in Jonesburo, Dad was looking through the 2007 Arkansas State Parks guide and he found it. I'm happy to report that the bridge will be preserved as part of a new rails to trails project - the new Delta Heritage Trail State Park. Arkansas has some of the best state parks in the nation, and I'm pleased as punch that this bridge will now be part of one of them.