It's been so long

It is not that I haven't had anything to blog about. Its just that it isn't really flowing out of me. I would have liked to blog about the following, but now it seems a little late...

*Getting served divorce papers for dessert (perhaps how you're served should be as importantly planned as how you get engaged... "he served me in a glass of champagne at sunset" "I was served under the lamp post where we first kissed" "he put the papers in a dozen dead roses and paid a skywriter to write We're Through in the sky")

*David Letterman is hilarious (teachers don't stay up that late and when they do their students ask them if they are stoned)

*We are all packing up and planning our long dark winter walk to California with the other Okies after we lose the farm, "in these dark times"

*The government should just pay off all our house loans for 350 Billion. Then inflation won't go up and we could pay for more starbucks and walmart stuff and the globe will keep operating.

* I actually heard myself say the following quote, "well IKEA is where married people go on Saturdays if they don't have to go to Home Depot, wanna go?"

*And in response to the above I spent the weekend watching Football and Super Friends. Really, Super Friends on boomerang. Really.

It's 2008

When I was an undergrad, times were different. A democrat was in office (for most of it). We were impeaching a president for a silly willy. People smoked outside of buildings, even the pre-med buildings. Girls mostly wore sweatpants and hoodies and backpacks. Guys wore the current uniform of t's shorts and hats. Nary a cell phone, absolutely no ipods, barely even email. Emailing your paper to the prof was insane~! Blackboards were still black and had chalk. Libraries still had books not computers with these wonderful PDFs. Few took a lap top to class, and texting was absurd. I don't think anyone spoke of the election much, and t-shirts were about beer not political agendas.

Well... as a grad student eight years later, many things have changed. The girls dress to the nines with heels and bags, sunglasses and hoops. Everyone is either on a cell phone, texting while walking, or looking for their phone while walking across campus. I smile every time I see a bumper sticker or t-shirt or pin or artwork on a backpack. You know why I'm smiling? Because each and everyone one of them say vote for Obama. I'm not really seeing any Republican propaganda around. Hooray! Now this may correspond with moving from a red state to a blue state or from the beautiful west to the refinery traffic ridden east. But I think the college vote just may work in our favor this time. They (we) might actually get out and Barack the vote.

On the high school front... In my hoodlum ridden class (my favorite of the day this year) students presented symbiotic relationships in groups. I had the idea for them to act out their symbiotic relationships for the class but neglected to assign it because it was hard enough to get them to make the poster. But during the presentation 2 groups actually did a modern dance interpretation of their organisms acting symbiotically and I was totally impressed! One was of a tubeworm and a bacteria, the other of the "mafia" brown headed cowbird that lays eggs in another birds nest and then when the bird is born it kills all the other babies by pushing their eggs out of the nest.

Now, the teacher (me) thought that was the best part of the group presentations of course. But the show stopper, the item that had the entire class discussing and listening? What was that? "Backrow Boy"'s shirt that had a picture of Bush with the word EVIL written across his forehead (in sharpie pen) and the quote on the side "not my president" and in the sharpie pen "too young to vote"!!

Eat Bertha's Mussels

They even have bumper stickers for this cause, and so with a guest in town from New York, roomie and I took our usual tour of the Baltimore town with an evening in fells point where sleepless in Seattle and Homicide Life on the Streets where filmed), and the mussels were delicious! They also had a nice grilled veg platter that followed the escargot course. Because I know 'nuff I didn't wear my ozzy shorts and University of Utah t shirt that I wore to the Dulaney football game, I actually wore a real girl outfit with heals. Yes, we all know the cobble stones in Fells Point are not the best place to wear shoes like this... But I was very careful. I even had a plan squared away with Erik and Mike that if I did fall in the street they could laugh for a minute, but then they had to pick me up.

I successfully sobered up after my 2.5 glasses to walk along the cobblestones after leaving the boys to "hook up" with the girlies. I didn't fall at all. But I went to Stacey's to watch a showing of Big Daddy on the big screen projector in their beautiful back yard. Then of course, in pure Paigeness, I promptly fell off the porch. Chair and all ass over tea kettle, smashing a bush, breaking the chair, and wishing I wasn't so sober to remember the whole thing.

Moral of this story: Mussels are not vegan, and I definitely have a new favorite wine. I actually hugged the 1/2 bottle(the most action in months and it was only $20) Fess Parker Chardonnay from Santa Barbara . It was so delicious I feel as if I must tell KJ about the affair and I will be ok if he breaks up with me and I can only commit to the Parker fellow when I can afford it.

Eat Bertha's Mussels
(John Roberts)

(G) F#
Eat Bertha's mussels, they're the best there is by far
You can eat them in the dining room, you can eat them in the bar
So when you're ashore in Baltimore and you fancy a bite to eat
Just follow your nose to Bertha's, you'll be in for a rare
old treat

Now a sailor came to Bertha's with a problem most severe
His manly pride had atrophied from a voyage of forty years
A couple of plates of mussels, now he sings in a different key
His jib boom's set right, he'll be in there tonight, and he'll
never go back to sea.

CHORUS
Now a lady came to Bertha's, who wanted a daughter or a son
The doctors had said with a shake of the head that she couldn't
have either one
So she ate a plate of mussels and went home to her husband dear
She tuned up his cryth, and I'll tell you the truth, she had
triplets the very same year.
CHORUS
They will cure your diarrhea, cure your constipation, too.
Just swallow a box for the chicken pox, the measles or the flu.
Now, if you fancy a healthy life, get your daily doses straight
A plate a day of Bertha's mussels, and you'll live 'til you're 98.
CHORUS
By John Roberts about Bertha's Mussels on Fells Point in
Baltimore.

Things you shouldn't blog about

Republicans sending group emails about English Only laws
Vegan diets and the hunger therein
Cleaning the liter box or not, a theoretical framework
Gravity Boots: Palin a go-go
1980's songs... Forever young or Pretty in Pink
Price of gas and airline tickets in the pre-post Bush era
Armed robberies that occur at your neighborhood convenience store

I am ready for some

football! Crisp air followed by big rain storm yesterday is making for a great opening day. I'm excited I get to watch all the games again. It's funny the things you miss when you don't know you missed them. Team iron horse came within 5 points of first place in the trivia tournament this week. Had a nice brunch except the veggie wrap was boiling hot green beans in a tortilla. Hungry enough to eat it, but the bloody Mary's gave my sustenance yesterday. I saw a weird movie I didn't think I would like called Alpha Dog, but it was surprisingly interesting and sad. Today I'm planning on watching football, grading papers, and reading about the evolution of human behavior in mate selection... hmmm...

Turning in reading notes

My class on Wednesdays has undergrads in it and I have to turn in a photocopy of my notes each week to the prof. Although worried about all the work I will have to do for a 1 credit class, I guess it would have been better to know this BEFORE I started grad school 3 years ago. It also puts me on campus at very high traffic 3:30 and I am baffled by all the younglings. Then the coincidence is I'm collecting my students notes tomorrow on their readings in APES :).

Also, instead of perfecting my research paper on the buoyancy of seedlings in the summer when I had so much time, I still have to do it and got the dreaded "can I get a copy" email from that prof today. Oh procrastination, weary of time, who captures the rays of the sun.

Oh wait, that's Blake's sunflower- Double Ha to that D in Romantic Poetry.

And there were many student activists about everything and many many obama buttons

Songs of Today

"Do You Remember Walter" the Kinks
"Be OK" Ingrid Michaelson
"You don't know me" Ben Folds (if only this nerd played this at his show at the Meyerhoff)

Plans change

I got rid of my second kicker. We went to a regular bbq instead of the crab feast. But the best part was buying the Times and sitting at a fancy OB like place, drinking wine, and reading the paper at the inner harbor watching the sail boats and tourists.

Divorce club anthem #375