Mean girl

I was just looking at my Facebook wall, and I said aloud, "I wish so-and-so would stop posting pictures of their kid, because the kid is ugly." Funny because it's true - and pretty horrifyingly mean. Thankfully, I was at home, and only the SO heard me.

Feast of the day: peanut butter whoopie pie!

This is the smallest Feast of the Day, in terms of overall amount of food consumed, but it was a delightful Feast of the Day for being so unexpected. A package came 2000 miles with a snack bought in Maine: a peanut butter whoopie pie. Apparently, it was from a shop which is devoted to whoopie pies, which is the neatest thing ever. I saved a quarter for the SO and I to eat at home, and cut the other three-quarters up to share with everyone, in true school feast tradition. (There were also other items in the package, which were also delightful and appreciated, but they fall outside the scope of the Feast of the Day.)

Zagnut!

I was just reminded of Zagnut candy bars a few minutes ago. I said I used to use that as a slang word in college, and my co-worker, who will remain nameless, said that didn't surprise her at all. Hee.

"luscious strawberries and whipped cream"

Well, there certainly hasn't been a Feast of the Day in a while, or even a Feast of the Fortnight. Instead of labeling them by time, I decided to label all future feasts with a phrase from the feast itself.
This one's from Nancy Lee's Spring Term, circa 1915 or so, and it describes "a wedding breakfast that began with luscious strawberries and whipped cream and went on through ‘birds’ nests’ (which are only eggs, beaten and then baked to look like a whitey brown nest with browny-yellow eggs in it, built on a slice of toast) and the most delicate marmalade, also on toast, to waffles and maple syrup...[the cat] lapped cream out of a silver bowl, until even his greedy little kittenship could lap no more.”

What I do and don't miss

Now that I have been home for a few days, I thought it would be interesting to see whether I was right about what I miss and don't miss.

What I miss about Florida:
Astonishingly, I miss the exercise! It's much easier to exercise when you absolutely have to.
I miss the incentive to blog, and the Feast of the Day. I know there will be more Feasts in future, but they're more likely to be Feasts of the Week, or Feasts of the Fortnight.
I was a lot more disciplined about not messing around on the Internet while I was gone, partly because I made a deal with myself and partly because in the last week or two, I was just too busy.
The friend I made there, though I was pleased to trade e-mails with her already.
I'm already feeling behind at work, so I miss the ability to check things off on a list and be done with them. That said, I feel more purpose here than in Florida, where I always had a secret fear that what I was doing wasn't worthwhile.
Sleeping in air-conditioning, which I will miss even more as the summer goes on.

What I thought I'd be happier about in California:
The more extensive wardrobe. Honestly, I don't much care.

What absolutely delights me about California:
The weather!
All the technology: a printer! (I didn't have access to one in Florida). The French press! The car, the hog, and the piglet to drive!
Curling, which delights me even more than I'd expected.

And I mean, I can't stress enough that I feel really lucky. I was just reminded that there are horrible situations to live in that I don't even think about most of the time.

Feast of the Day, 11 May

Today's Feast of the Day almost couldn't be more boring, but I'm just glad I found one at all! Before I go on with today's Feast, let me tell you why.
I looked at a book this morning that was so old there's no way to tell how old it was; the catalogue just says (1823-1852). It could have been published any time between then! Anyway, I looked at it because it had a story called "The Boarding-School Feast" in it. Except that the feast in question was wicked and wrong, according to the author. The food - pound cake and mince-pies and grapes and such - doesn't sound bad, but the feast ends in confusion and disaster: two girls ruin their dresses, two get food in their hair, two are sick all night, one cuts her foot. Oh, and money that should have been spent to buy a cloak for a poor woman is spent on the feast, so the poor woman gets rheumatism. Wicked, wicked greed!
(This is interesting because that very old book is British. Something I read earlier this week said that British girls read about the feasts in American books with huge amounts of envy - they got boiled mutton and bread and milk a lot. So this might be a cultural difference as well - at least for a while, until Enid Blyton wrote some very elaborate midnight feasts into her school stories in the 1940s).
The next book I looked at (Polly's Polly at Boarding School, 1928) mentioned “comsommé, jellied chicken, hot muffins and apple tapioca" as a "sumptuous feast"! Ugh.
But later in that same book, there was a boring, but slightly yummier, Christmas dinner, which by default is the Feast of the Day:
“The dinner was a huge success. With roast turkey stuffed with chestnuts at one end of the table, and boiled turkey stuffed with oysters at the other, cranberry sauce and apple sauce, mince pie and pumpkin pie, was it any wonder that the fruit and nuts were slighted?”

Feast of the Day, 10 May

I quote my notes about Barbara Winthrop at Boarding School, 1925, pretty much verbatim:
Today’s been a bad one for Feast of the Day. This might have to do, pp. 278-279: “There was plenty of driftwood to make the cheerful fire over which the girls roasted their ‘Wienies’ and fried their bacon. After eating innumerable sandwiches, rolls with the big fat wienies between the halves, potato chips and all the things that go to make up a picnic lunch that girls always adore - not forgetting Betsy’s cheese crackers, of course - they buried potatoes in the ashes for later use, and lay back on their sweaters to bask in the sun.”
This is similar to a wienie roast I rejected yesterday as too boring, but for two things: they eat bacon with their hot dogs, and this character Betsy's nigh-obsession with cheese crackers matches mine for popcorn.
I can't believe there's only one more regularly-scheduled Feast of the Day! I'd like to continue them, though; my reading on this topic won't end tomorrow, just the reading of that collection of books.

what I will and won't miss, part 2

In the last one, I found both a positive and a negative. Hmmm. Here goes: I was often cranky during the exercise, because I was hot, but the sheer inconvenience of not having a motorized vehicle of any kind (except on the weekends) meant that I walked more, or rode more, and now am more in shape than I was when I left.
Here's kind of a mixed one: I drank more Coke than usual when I was here, one almost every day. I've been trying to cut down, so this was tasty but unhealthful. But it's because I lacked a good substitute - I've had coffee only about half a dozen times since I was here. This whole post was started because I was thinking longingly about my French press. Oh, the French press! Aside from the car and the scooters, this might be the inanimate object I miss most.
I really try not to mention names here on this blog, so I won't. But I will say that the one friend I've made here will be a genuine loss. I find her conversation really interesting. But of course, however interesting she is, she is not the friend I sit across from, or the friend in Siberia, or the beloved sibling in New York, or the friend I like quite a bit in Tennessee, or the one I visited in Mississippi. Or, of course, the SO! The friend I leave here I will miss, but I will gain more time with three of those mentioned above.

Feast of the Day, 9 May

Not a great day for feasts, sadly. I read The Girls of Greycliff, 1923, for much of today. They don't eat much in here, but toward the end there's a skating party with boys! Two of the main characters meet their future husbands there - well, one certain future husband, one who will be if he survives World War I (I haven't finished the sequel yet).
Anyway, in a rare bit of normalcy, the girls sleep in and miss breakfast, so they have to scrounge around to find something tasty. They come up with eating peanut butter and crackers and oranges for breffa. You're wondering, perhaps, why this is a Feast of the Day? I liked how normal this was - people eighty years could have done this.
But then! One of their friends comes in with a very well-timed care package from her sister, containing an abundance of cake and bananas and grapes and doughnuts and cocoa! Total Feast of the Day.

what I will and won't miss, part 1

I don't usually live in Florida, of course, but I've been here for a month now. Crazy! I go back home on Saturday. People keep asking me whether I'm glad or not, and really I'm of two minds about it. Here are things I like about Florida: the ability to focus on one project for weeks on end; air-conditioning; my apartment; thunderstorms; traveling on the weekends; some of the people I have met; some of the yummy food I have eaten; reading all day.
But balanced against that is the heat! Oh, the heat. It makes me feel almost frantic. I spend considerable effort, in life, in general, trying never to be too warm, but here it's inescapable. The insects and other wildlife are alien, and I'm always a bit tense outdoors here. I'm worried that my friends are forgetting who I am in my absence. I miss the SO and the cats, I miss my friends, I miss the rest of my things. I miss certain foods. And oh, I miss having a motorized means of transportation!
When I go home there will be work dramas - there always, always are - and tasks I don't enjoy (going door-to-door about an upcoming election). There will be untidiness to deal with at home; I have so few possessions here that it is easy to keep everything tidy all the time. There will be frequent interruptions at work; the times here, when no one speaks to me while I'm in the library reading, will seem unimaginable within a fortnight.
But I will have the SO, and friends, and cats, and curling, and all my books, and a much more extensive wardrobe, and motorized transportation, and much much much better weather!
I suspect I will think of more to add to the list, which is why this is only part 1. These are reminders for myself, so that in ten days, when I wish I were in Florida, I can remember why I wanted to be home. Or if I love being home, I can remember there were good things about here, too.

Feast of the Day, 8 May

A picnic caught my attention yesterday, but I think that was mostly because it was on sand-dunes in northern Indiana. The unusual location caught my attention more than the food, which was standard hot dogs and pickles and cake.
So instead I've chosen one from The Orcutt Girls, written in about 1890, I think, but set in 1870. These two farm girls go off to school for a term, and have to do their own housekeeping and cooking. But their dad assures them: “I shall be up every few weeks with a good load of things from home. Your mother’ll find time to make you up a batch of pies and doughnuts now and then, I guess, and I’ll see that you don’t run out of ham and good corned beef.” All of this sounds very reassuring and yummy! The dad also makes sure the cellar is full of root vegetables and apples before he leaves them there.

Feast of the Day, 7 May

The first book I read had a long list of candies in it, but I've done one of those lately. This list of candies was only interesting because it mentions candies with cordial in them, and how this girl should give them up because of her family tendency to alcoholism. Has anyone, anywhere, anytime, ever gotten drunk on the liquor in chocolate? I have no idea, but it seems so unlikely.
So by default, I'm stuck with the one midnight spree in Frank Merriwell at Yale (1903). Frank and some friends steal a turkey (though because Frank Is Good, he leaves $5 to pay for it). Somehow, they roast it within two hours, and have a very late night feast of turkey and beer (except for Frank; Frank doesn't drink alcohol, because - yes - Frank Is Good). Here's the mouth-watering description of the turkey: “The turkey was white and tender, and it was certainly very well cooked. It had a most delicious flavor.”

Feast of the Day, 4 May

I realized that tomorrow's almost here, and I haven't posted Friday's Feast of the Day yet. For a change, there were several to choose from, but since they were all from the same book (The William Henry Letters) they all blur together.
Eight people eat this feast, contributed by a sailor named Tom. I should also add that in addition to the quotation below, the hostesses serve tea and twisted doughnuts. The feast is described in a letter: “Tom brought a good deal of sugar, all in white lumps, and a can of milk. He bought pies and jumbles and turnovers and ginger-snaps and egg-crackers and cake and bread at the bake-house, and butter and cheese and Bologna sausage - I can’t bear Bologna sausage - and some oranges, that he brought home from sea. And the sweetest jelly you ever saw! Don’t know what ‘t is made of, but they call it guava jelly, and comes in little boxes.”

fiction, more accurate than - well, fiction

On Friday, I read a book called The William Henry Letters, from 1870 or thereabouts. Toward the end, William Henry writes to a friend that “I guess I should like to go to Kansas. But there are the Indians after your scalp, and fever and ague, and grasshoppers, and potato-bugs, and bean-bugs, and army-worms to eat up everything, and droughts to dry up everything, and floods to wash it away, and hurricanes to blow it down, and Uncle Jacob says if a man comes through all these alive, with a few grains of corn, the man that wants to buy ‘em is a hundred miles off!”
Srsly, that’s the whole Little House series, right there. I mean, I don't remember the potato-bugs, bean-bugs, or army-worms, and I do remember some leeches and maple syrup on snow, but aside from that, this author predicted a surprising number of events - even the fever and ague!

things I'll never learn

I was thinking this morning about some of the things I didn't understand or know or remember, but which I made an effort to learn (even-numbered interstates run east-west; when to use "whom", though I occasionally get that wrong; ways to start a book review that don't start with "This book").
But here are three that I don't know and have no intention of ever learning, because I just don't care:
- latitude and longitude
- the rules of light reflection and refraction, including the difference between concave and convex (though if pressed, I bet I could come up with an answer to that, at least)
- anything to do with time travel
And before you tell me, next time we talk, that whichever "l-itude" runs the long way, let me tell you: they span a globe! They're both long. Light refraction - for whatever reason, this makes no sense to me (and is there a difference between reflection and refraction? No idea). And oh, time travel! I know people who can explain why there's a time travel paradox in this book or that movie, and I just don't care. It'll make sense for that thirty seconds while I'm hearing it, sometimes, but then drift away. I'm reading Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card right now for a book club, and he not only goes into detail about time travel in the text, he writes a lengthy afterword explaining why he has broken the rules of time travel. Dude! If time travel ever happens, let's assume it's some sort of miracle of science, and not worry about why, 'kay?
Some might find this embrace of ignorance depressing, but really, I don't think everyone can know everything, so this is just a more overt declaration of some things I don't care to learn than most people make.

ads in the mail

I love it that I live close enough to a Steak 'n' Shake to get their ads in the mail! I want to bring these home to show people who, sadly, live without Steak 'n' Shake what they're missing. On the other hand, I could use the coupons. Hmmm.

Feast of the Day, 3 May

I've been sleepy today - I stayed up late last night to finish making a list of some journal articles I want to borrow - and so for the last 90 minutes it's been an epic struggle to keep sitting in my chair and reading. I'm so glad I did, because I didn't have a Feast of the Day yet. But now I do. It's from The William Henry Letters, 1870, and it's a nice one because although the five boys who share William Henry's room at school aren't particularly nice to him, he's such a nice kid that he wants to share his birthday box with them anyway.
So here it is: "a table all spread out with a table-cloth that he had borrowed, and in the middle was a frosted cake with 'W.H.' on top done in red sugar. And close to that were some oranges, and a dish full of nuts, and as much as a pound of candy, and more figs than that, and four great cakes of maple-sugar, made on his father's land, as big as small johnny-cakes, and another kind of cake. And doughnuts."
The boys feel guilty for having been unfriendly to William Henry up 'til now, so they have to be urged to eat, and even then, they don't eat as much as they would have liked. And then some of them become friends with William Henry.

limitations

I'm intrigued by the way that increasingly, my reading here is bound by limitations that are purely physical: can I make it to and from the Library without getting overheated? How much can I carry at one time without becoming overburdened? How many books can I carry at once for four or five blocks? Is it possible to read as much as I need to read in the next eight days?
The answers: yes, so far, but it's been close once or twice;
my bookbag today has my laptop, the power cable, a long-sleeved shirt for the air-conditioned archives, at least five issues of various children's lit journals, a paperback book, and a hardcover book I borrowed from my advisor today;
I need to go pick up a dozen at the library tomorrow, so hopefully at least that many!;
no idea! But I will try.

Feast of the Day, 2 May

Gypsy, in Gypsy's Year at the Golden Crescent (1867) is invited to join a secret society called the "Evergreen Sisters", which is a fake name. The initials are right, but really, it stands for "Eating Society". These girls create a secret society just for the purpose of feasting every two weeks!
This is fascinating, because I've been tracking both the growth of secret societies in schools and the rise of material culture; Gypsy, in this book, is stressed out because her pledge pin for the society costs $5.00, and she's not well-off.
Most of the meetings of the E.S. aren't described, but the last one is - they're determined to make this one the best ever. I don't know exactly how many girls are here - but there are only twenty in the school, and not all belong, so I'd guess no more than eight or ten.
OK? Here goes with crazy late-night feasting: "Mellow ice-cream, daintily-shaped cream-cakes, pure white ladies' cakes, jelly-rolls that would melt in one's mouth, bananas from which the soft, green skin was bursting, strawberries wrapped in cool green leaves, rainbows of the "latest", candies in pretty painted boxes, and nobody there to say that they were poison, Dolly's delicate wafers, and rich, yellow whips beaten to solid froth - it was not a bill of fare to be despised." And then a girl brings out champagne, and another brings out cigarettes, and I was shocked! And so was the heroine, who leaves the feast - bumping into the headmistress who's on her way in. Eeep!
However, a girl runs away and tries to elope that night, and then another dies a few days later of illness, so with all the excitement the girls never really get in trouble.

Feast of the Day, 1 May

Today's Feast of the Day doesn't sound very exceptional, but bear with me. There's a brunch at school, to which boys, with their huge manlike appetites, are invited. So they run out of food just as the last people get to the tables. Instead of going into the kitchen and asking the cook for more food, the heroine and her best friend go upstairs to their room and see what they've got; they keep a box outside the window (it's February in New England). They come down with scrambled eggs, bacon, rolls, coffee, potato salad, and chocolate cake, which are gratefully received.
No, seriously, seriously - these two roommates keep bacon and eggs in their cold-box, just on the off-chance someone might want some? No idea where they cooked these things so quickly, or brewed the coffee (the chocolate cake was sent from home). But wow - for a feast that was completely unplanned, that's pretty lavish.

Feast of the Day, 30 April

I find it interesting that my notes these days actually say things like, "Feast of the Day!" or, lately, "possible Feast of the Day, unless a better one comes". The notes are practically little blog posts in and of themselves, just on paper. The Feast of the Day for the 30th (sorry, I'm posting it a day late) is one of these:
"A dull, but possible, Feast of the Day, p. 166: 'there was soup, two vegetables, cream sauce and gravy, salad, salad-dressing, muffins, cocoa and dessert.' What's the gravy for?"
A day later, I still can't suss this out. No meat is mentioned. I think it's insanely old-fashioned (but then, so is this 20s book), but possible, that these girls put cream sauce on their vegetables. That still leaves the gravy, which is for - what, the muffins? If they were biscuits, I could almost see that; "biscuits and gravy" is an established pairing. But as is, it's an odd addition to the menu.

Kenny Rogers, gamer

I'm listening to a country music playlist, and "The Gambler" was on. I love the line about "If you're gonna play the gameboy, you better learn to play it right" - and yes, I know, there's a space and a comma missing from that quotation!

I look like a librarian

Weirdly, I'm dressed less like a librarian than usual - I'm wearing jeans and a blue v-neck t-shirt. But twice in the last half-hour, I've been stopped by people asking questions. One nice old guy wanted to know how to get to his granddaughter's FAA? FFA? thing. I have no idea where it is, but people in the archives kept giving me maps my first week, so I passed one along and helpfully oriented him. ("We're here, and we just passed this street, and so you need to go...").
So then I got into the archives and signed myself in, as I go, and was borrowing a pencil when a pair of undergrads started asking me questions: is this library closing? what are the hours? wouldn't it be great if this were open 24/7 for finals studying? does this room have, like, old books? All of those were questions I could answer (no; 9-6 M-TH, 9-5 F; yes!; yes). I started moving toward a table to start working, which is when they sussed out I don't actually work there. They apologized, I explained that I am a librarian, just not here, and I make a joke about looking like a librarian. So - hunh, I guess I do.

Feast of the Day, 26 April

Usually, I wait until the end of the day for this feast, and indeed I might regret it later, when I read about Katy and Clover's amazing gift box in What Katy Did at School. But this is all the more staggering for being unexpected. For Fourth of July at this school, the girls can send away for as many snacks as they like. Here's one girl's staggering order:
"Two pounds of Chocolate Caramels.
Two pounds of Sugar Almonds.
Two pounds of Lemon Drops.
Two pounds of Mixed Candy.
Two pounds of Maccaroons.
A dozen Oranges.
A dozen Lemons.
A drum of Figs.
A box of French Plums.
A loaf of Almond Cake."
The girl is found on her bed, "ghastly and pallid", 24 hours after the sweets arrive. How much did she eat?

shibboleths

What I'm going to say sounds more clever in my head than it will here, I swear. Along with my lengthy musings on habit lately, I've been thinking about shibboleths. Yesterday, some friendly man greeted me with enthusiasm, apologizing because he hadn't realized I was here, and would have said hi earlier. Then a different man yesterday said hello in the way that you do when you think you know someone, but can't place them.
Here's the thing: I don't know either of them! Of course I don't, how could I? I don't live here. But I looked as though I belonged in this building with the archives. My glasses, my messenger bag slung crosswise across me, my loafers, the colors I was wearing all made me look like someone who belonged there.
I think there must be loads of these little shibboleths that indicate inclusion in whatever group you're in, or indicate that someone belongs where they are. I just happened to do well at whatever shibboleth bingo was in these guys' heads yesterday.
Anyway, as I said, I think there's an interesting (if not startlingly original) idea somewhere in here, but I don't know that I've managed to convey it here.

Feast of the Day, 25 April

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. Here's a food-related thought to make up for it, though. Today in the archives I'm re-reading a couple of old favorites, What Katy Did at School and Little Men, because of course my research is based on what I read here at the Library, so if I want to include them I should look at them here, y'know?
So anyway: I was thinking about Little Men and the chapter in which Nan and Daisy are given a little kitchen to work in, so they learn to cook. I was thinking about how this is probably one of the first Domestic Science lessons in a school story, because of course before this girls would have learned to cook before school, right? Well, wrong, because Daisy's mother, Meg, didn't know how to cook until she was married, which throws this theory out the window.
And here's the thing: why on earth didn't Meg know how to cook? Was Marmee assuming all of her girls would be able to keep a servant? I swear, for girls who cry poor as often as those March girls did, they sure were entitled!
So no Feast of the Day for yesterday, because Meg wouldn't have been able to cook one when she was a schoolgirl.

Feast of the Day, 24 April

Today's books were almost literally without mention of food at all. So I'm going back to what would have been my Feast of the Day, if I had been doing Feasts of the Day on April 11th. I read a really disarming book called Bob Knight's Diary at Poplar Hill School, published in 1900. Bob befriends the cook at his school and does all sorts of work for her so she'll cook doughnuts for him and his classmates. His obsession with doughnuts reads as follows: "There is nothing like being on the right side of the cook. Doughnuts! Doughnuts!! Doughnuts!!!" If I make it to the super retro-looking Krispy Kreme while I'm here, I'll eat one in Bob's honor.

"read my lips: al-lee-gay-tor"

One of the very nice people from the archives here invited me to lunch near the Student Union here, which has a sinkhole right near it. A very nice sinkhole, mind, with a fountain and amphitheater seating so one can look at the water. Anyway, she pointed out an alligator! So I went closer to the fence and took this blurry picture.
This was more exciting than we knew; both of us told people "hey, we saw an alligator!" as we went back to our respective tasks. The person I talked to, after I excitedly told him about the alligator, said something about a nearby lake. I said, "well, no, we were at the sinkhole".
My lunch companion came to me later and said that one of her colleagues had told her there weren't supposed to be alligators in that sinkhole, and this one must have walked over from that lake. Dude! I didn't know they did that.
The title for this post is fron The Muppet Movie, by the way.

Ring of endless light

I was playing around on imdb just now, as one does, and I saw that Jared Padalecki was in A Ring of Endless Light. "Oooh, he'd be a really cute Adam!" thought I, and headed over to youtube to watch a clip. He played Zachary Gray instead, and was a convincing jerk (the guy who was playing Adam was not even close to amazing enough, unless the Leo character in the movie also spends time with dolphins. He would have been an okay Leo).
I thought the actress who played Vicky looked familiar, so I went back to check it out, and then thought: "oh! attractive? wooden line readings? yep, that was Mischa Barton all right!"

Feast of the Day, 23 April

I'm disinclined to have a Feast of the Day today, because nothing was especially exciting. One book I read hardly mentioned food at all, the other just wasn't very interesting about it. Except for this: every pic-nic (yes, they hyphenated it!) that these children went on featured them starting a fire and then roasting apples. I don't really get this - it seems that part of the value of apples (aside from yumminess) is their thirst-quenching, very handy on a pic-nic! Starting a fire and waiting around for apples to roast seems very strange. Not the weirdest thing by far about The Great Elm, but it didn't help any.

the phaeton

I can't really describe why one of the books I read today (Jacob Abbott's The Great Elm, 1856) was so unsettling, but I'd guess it's a cognitive dissonance issue. Candidly, I'd prefer to discuss it face-to-face, so ask me sometime, if you're curious. But I will share this picture with you, in hopes that this will help. For what it's worth, Blogger crashed my web browser just now, as I was starting this blog post, in what I can only assume was an editorial comment.

ads in a book from 1866

Ads in the back from a religious book from 1866, which made me curious or amused me:

THE INFIDEL. Reminiscences of the West India Islands. Second Series, No. IV. Two illustrations. 18mo., pp. 137.

STORIES OF SCHOOL-BOYS. Second Series. Five Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 228.

TOO LATE Or, the Fatal Effects of Procrastination. Illustrated in a Series of Authentic Sketches. By Rev. J.T. Barr, A.M., Author of “Recollections of a Minister", etc., etc. 18mo, pp. 115.

THE BRANDY DROPS; Or, Charlie’s Pledge. A Temperance Story. By AUNT JULIA. 18mo., pp. 103.

we're all in the mood for a melody

Last weekend, at the house I visited in Mississippi, there was a keyboard. I was startled - heaven knows why - by how clumsily I ran through some scales. It was as though I hadn't played for years, and of course I hadn't. This bothered me so much that I found a very inexpensive keyboard and brought it home this weekend. I can't get the volume as low as I'd like, so now I'm a bit worried that my neighbors will hear, and be annoyed by, the ineptly played scales.

Feast of the Day, 20 April 2012

I didn't post this yesterday, but I read it then. It's from a book called Miss Howard's School, by the improbably-named Glance Gaylord. This book is set in a rural community, so the kids at school have comparatively less money than in most of the books I read. So this feast sounds less lavish, but given the standards of the community, it really is a feast: "The cup-custards were so delicious, and the pound-cake second to none! and the peaches and biscuit and butter were praised even higher; and Aunt Hetty’s tea, being made by one so fond of tea, was of course faultless. The little girls liked it all the better for drinking it out of little china cups with gold rims, the relics of Aunt Hetty’s younger days." I like this one, too, because the author takes pains to assure the reader that this is very good food, not just a huge quantity.

Feast of the Day, 19 April

So, yeah, today wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. This morning's archive work was really good: I had a really interesting idea (though I says it as shouldn't) about substitutes for religion in schools, and I got through the work I'd wanted to do today by lunchtime. So instead of staying just for the sake of it, I went home super crazy early! At home this afternoon I read and took notes on about 200 pages of the secondary material I'd borrowed, so that was good, and then I watched a couple of Supernatural episodes just now, because obviously I want nightmares.

But none of that is relevant to the Feast of the Day! Here it is, from Bobby Blake and His School Chums - a description of a lunch packed for four people and eaten, by the way, after snacking on apples in the morning: "A whole roast chicken was dragged to light amid shouts of glee. Then there were ham and tongue sandwiches, peach and apple tarts with plenty of filling and with golden, flaky crust, and biscuits, freshly baked that morning with a pot of honey to spread on them." Seriously: each boy ate, on average, a sandwich, a biscuit, a tart, and a quarter of a chicken, after snacking on apples! These kids are 11 or 12, by the way.

something's gotta give

If you don't want to read whining, stop here.
In the evenings, I want to have a life. I want to be able to spend two hours watching ANTM without guilt - or, if I feel guilt, it should be guilt at giving attention to the increasingly erratic Tyra Banks. But I feel as though I should spend at least an hour or two every evening looking at secondary sources and typing up notes and writing my paper, because it's becoming increasingly clear that I will need that context soon. But heavens, I give eight hours a day to this time in the archives, and I would like to spend some of that time typing and reading secondary sources. Yes, yes, I know. But it's stupid for me to feel stressed-out and behind on what is, essentially, a working vacation. It took some considerable effort to talk myself out of bed this morning in anything like a reasonable mood. Which is why I'm deliberately planning to be about half an hour late this morning, thanks to spending 20 minutes on the computer while eating some breffa (no vanilla Kashi in Florida, so far as I've seen, but honey nut Cheerios are a tasty substitute).

Feast of the Day, 18 April

This one might be cheating, because the school serves it as Thanksgiving dinner. But they serve it to no more than 25 people, so I think it still counts. This is from One Year at Our Boarding-School, from the mid-1870s:

"Soups, roast and boiled turkey, oyster sauce, roast beef, chickens, scalloped oysters, tomatoes, beets, turnips, potatoes, apple fritters, currant jelly, cranberries, celery and pickles. For dessert: Meringue pudding, mince-pie, apple-pie, cream-pie, cherry-pie, lemon-pie, cranberry-pie, pumpkin-pie, custard-pie, dried-apple-pie, plum-pie....Then came ice-cream, cake and candy...a cup of coffee, nuts and raisins finished the dinner."

I love that they serve apple fritters as part of dinner! And then serve apple pie afterward. Just staggering. This makes the Sucrerie de la Montagne's menu slightly less impressive, though it was, perhaps, close.

OK, off to my lunch - a PBJ and a plum - which seems sad and meager now, though I'm sure it will be yummy.

new feature: Feast of the Day, 17 April

Yes, I know today's the 18th. Bear with me. I meant to blog this yesterday, but I was (funnily enough) out late at a yummy dinner of my own. Yesterday I read a description of a feast sent from home to a boarding school that, I felt sure, had inspired a young Enid Blyton to pick up her pen. ("I'll see you this feast, and raise you lashings of ginger-beer! Bring it on!")
Today, I read about a feast that might actually have been more staggering, so I decided on a new feature: the Feast of the Day. Here's yesterday's Feast of the Day, courtesy of Cathalina at Greycliff, a book I finished yesterday. Cathalina's roommate gets a box from home containing the following, which the roommate and Cathalina serve to ten guests: fried chicken, salad, blackberry jelly, birthday cake with candles, nut bread, pimento & cheese sandwiches, butter, rolls, fudge, divinity, "cream candies, made with fondant", blanched almonds and hickory nut meats, olives, pickles, oranges, apples, chocolates, and cocoa.

Olive Garden

Oh, I miss Olive Garden! In particular, the dinners there with the friend of mine who likes Olive Garden more than I do, if that's possible.
But really, too, I'm mentioning Olive Garden here because I don't have the e-mail address of the person whose couch I slept on this last weekend, and to whom I promised this link of Harry Potter people saying American phrases. So if you're reading this, here you go . (And if you're not that person, watch it anyway! It's funny).

pointless jargon

I went to a lecture tonight, and it was so jargon- and theory-filled that I didn't understand much of it. Thankfully, I liked the speaker's voice, and I thought some of what he said was interesting. He was wearing a lined jacket which reminded me of a magician, and I found that distracting. Also - and I wish I were making this up - he used the word "intentionality", which just boggled the mind. In context, "intent" would have worked just as well, and saved four syllables! It's even worse, to my mind, than "functionality", which is also awful.

bizarre book description

I can't read books without at least a five-minute break in between them first; otherwise, they blur together. So I checked my e-mail and looked up Daisy Summerfield's Style in this library's catalogue; I still want to re-read it. They have a copy, which delights me, not least because of this incredibly disapproving item desciption: "An aspiring young artist squanders money and rationalizes the use of unethical methods to create an artistic air around herself, not realizing that artistic skill, not surroundings, make an artist."
Um, well, yes? Maybe? I mean, the book is about Daisy becoming an artist. She squanders money on things like food and "egg shampoo", whatever that is. When she's extravagant, she returns the items almost immediately. And oh yeah, she becomes a good artist. And the person from whom she steals the luggage doesn't mind at all, as it turns out.
But really, I don't think I've ever read a book description in a library catalogue that was so disapproving! Makes me want to write some of my own, like this: "A "fable" written in three days that, through an improbably naif character and several inaccuracies, trivializes the Holocaust." (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas really was written in three days, by the way, which explains a lot).

Pensacola

On the way back from Mississippi yesterday, I got lost in Pensacola for a while; I couldn't be bothered to look at a map to get to the beach. This is as close as I got. I'm ashamed to say I don't know what sort of bird this is, but he was an agreeable fellow, turning his head so I could get a profile shot.

am I a troll?

I just did something I rarely do on Facebook: called someone out for sexism. Here's a news flash: if you compare a male athlete's poor performance to playing like a girl, you're being sexist. You're trying to say that women are worse athletes. People say this who would never, presumably, say that an athlete played like someone of a different race.
I might be unfriended for this, I might get angry responses. I don't think I deserve anger: seriously, if you don't want to get called for being sexist, don't post sexist things on Facebook. But I'm tired of going on Facebook and seeing people be stupid.

century-old fanfic

Those who know me well will probably know about my affection for and fascination with fanfic. If not, well: okay, I have an affection for and fascination with fanfic. You're all caught up now.
I was reading a book from 1911 yesterday (The Girls of Dudley School), and two of the girls presented a play to some of their friends. The girls had decided that Juliet wasn't right for Romeo, and he wouldn't have wound up dead if he were to fall in love with someone else. They choose “that jolly Miss Rosalind... ready for any kind of a joke or good time” from As You Like It. Their play proceeds with Romeo acting like Romeo, and Rosalind being Rosalind, to great comic effect. I thought it was funny, but was also delighted to find century-old fanfic, essentially! The SO pointed out that not only is it fanfic, but also that these two girls were shippers.

no carbs!

I'm in Mississippi, in a really charming house with a screened-in porch and lots of windows and a couple of vaguely run-down buildings in the back, which seems very Southern to me. This house also has wireless! So here I am.
Last night I was at a gas station in Alabama, filling up and checking on my directions. I wandered around in search of a snack and found a display of seven different flavors of pork rinds. This horrified me, because I'm not a fan, but I loved that the packaging says, "No Carbs!" Well, yes, that's truth in advertising for you.

Edible books - children's titles

I've learned from the previous post that I need to mention the titles in reverse order. Hmmm. Okay, so: Winnie the Pooh, The Stupids Die, The Sneetches and Green Eggs and Ham.

Edible books - adult titles

Dude, not that kind of adult title! The library here had an Edible Books contest: people made edible cake-like things inspired by a book. I don't have permission to post these - didn't know who to ask - so I assume it's okay. No one stopped me from taking pictures, anyway. Just so there aren't too many in one blog post, here are the adult books: Gibbon, a book about Marie Antoinette, an Agatha Christie, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and, weirdly for cake, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

I have to 'fess up

Okay, here's something that happened on Monday, but I was too embarrassed to confess it until now. See the door? Well, that's the door into the building with the archives. Monday morning, I couldn't get in. I tried to open the door with no success. I noticed that there were wheelchair placards on the door, so I thought that perhaps one had to press the button to have the doors work. I couldn't find the button! A girl inside the building saw my plight and came to let me in, and I thought: "oh, of course! It's an archives, and those are secure. Of course I have to be let in from the inside!"

It wasn't until a day later that I realized that I needed to pull, not push, on the door. School for the Gifted, indeed!

"rowdyish actions of a rowdy"

One of my books from today was written by a Jesuit, and was very Victorian. At one point in the book, to teach a lesson about the Evils of Cheap Literature, a professor at the school reads a chapter about a prank. Most of the boys laugh, but then they are corrected: "you have been laughing at the rowdyish actions of a rowdy." I love this phrase because it sounds like something I'd make up when I'm just talking at random!

college-ruled paper

Why did I buy a sketchbook, of all things? I'm the worst artist I know. I bought it because I'd run out of scrap paper to take notes on, and because my laptop is too heavy to carry comfortably all the way to campus if I'm riding my bike. I went to a campus bookstore to look for paper, but all of their paper, even stationery, was college-ruled. I dislike college-ruled paper any time, but especially if I have to take my notes in pencil (which, of course, I do - it's an archives). So - yep, I went for the one pad of paper with no lines at all.

more 19th-century slang

I've moved from reading about Methodists to reading about Jesuits. The last Methodist book I read was super intense at the end: the villainess was eeevil and manipulative, but the comeuppance completely rocked.
The Jesuit book I'm reading - Percy Wynn, or, Making a Boy of Him - has one excellent bit of slang. Two bad guys, an Irish-American and an Italian, appear almost randomly (I swear, this isn't the set-up to a joke!). The Irish-American calls the other bad guy an "outlandish Garibaldian" - which isn't catchy at all. No wonder the guys are trying to make a living being wicked in Eastern Kansas of all places.

slang, circa 1862

These are recopied verbatim from the publishers' book advertisements (for religious and non-fiction works) in the book with the corn and rice waffles (see below). Can you find the bizarre word? And can you explain it to me? I have no context at all, except a very modern one:

BOOKS FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
200 Mulberry-Street, New York.

SWITZERLAND:
Historical and Descriptive. 18 mo, pp 214

HENRY'S FIRESIDE,
with Peeps at his Grandpa's Farm. By the Author of "Little Ella." Two illustrations. 18 mo.

corn and rice waffles?

The second book I read today was published in 1862, and was notable for never mentioning the Civil War at all. The SO suggested that perhaps the publishers thought the war would be over soon, and that's possible. But I still think it's insensitive to publish a book where a girl complains about the bread & butter and tea she is serves, saying that she wants coffee and meat and "corn or rice waffles" as they eat at home. I can't get my head around "corn or rice waffles", especially the latter.

tempted by apples

I promised myself I wouldn't complain about anything on this trip, because I feel very lucky. So that saves me from complaining about being sleepy while reading today, and my legs being tired from biking. And it frees up space to blog about what I read today.
I'm reading school stories, as I do, but today they were all evangelical Methodist ones from between 1840 and 1870. I usually don't read school stories like those! Anyway, in one, our heroine is tempted into bad behavior by a classmate. They - gasp! - steal a few apples. Let me say that again: it's a Christian book, and the heroine is tempted by the apple. Remarkably, despite the Bible verses in the footnotes, the anonymous author lets this one sail right on by, choosing some boring New Testament reference to good behavior instead of the blindingly obvious, hello!, reference to Eve and the apple. Also, it's a lot of fuss about a few apples.

no Fannie May?

OK, I'm listening to Blake Shelton and having a mild moment of regret: there's no Fannie May here! I'd assumed that anywhere east of the Mississippi would have one.
(For those of you from the West Coast, Fannie May is like See's, but better).
But no: there's only one in Florida, about 250 miles away. After that, the closest one is in Indiana, which is, obviously, nowhere even close to here.
It's even sadder - in that mild "sadface" way - because all the Easter candy will go on sale tomorrow. Not that I wasn't amply provided with yummies by the SO, but it would have been fun to go there.
On a brighter note, I had a really yummy Easter brunch at the hotel down the street. I threw on the one dress I'd packed, just to be polite, and I'm glad I did; there were some very-well-turned-out Easter churchgoers there!

just like Daisy Summerfield!

Ever read Daisy Summerfield's Style? I think only one person I know has - the person most likely to be reading this. Anyway, Daisy is this terribly Midwestern naif who is going to NYC for fashion school, even though she has no interest in this. On the train there (it was written 30 years ago, at least, so it's a train) she steals luggage from this madly artsy woman who has the same initials - and who also has the alpaca sweaters, hammered tin earrings, and Mexican embroidered skirts that Daisy craves. She holes up in a little walk-up in NYC and becomes a successful artist within a few months, using the clay and other sculpturing materials she finds in the luggage. (I must see if there's a copy here in the library!)
Why is this relevant? Because there's a staggering level of detail about Daisy's day-to-day life: the shampoo she buys, the spaghetti she eats, the bemused-but-helpful locals who give advice that anyone less naive wouldn't have needed.
Anyway, this little shopping-and-Steak-n-Shake trip was very Daisy to me, so I took a picture of my purchases. You'll note I have burners! I hadn't expected that, and it broadens my cooking options while I am here considerably. Spaghetti sometime soon, I think: I have a taste for it now.

overpacking

I just unpacked and now I have a question: how did I manage to pack fourteen pens and pencils and two copies of Sense and Sensibility? Last I checked, they have both in Florida.

Internet!

I got to my apartment here around 1:30, after getting the last seat on the last flight to Gainesville that day. I went to bed within half an hour. No idea why I'm awake already - I'm still really tired. Anyway, it's a nifty apartment, and "furnished" here meant having things like the modem already set up, just waiting for my computer. Yippee!

OK, going back to sleep now.

whining

A delayed flight (which led to me missing two possible connecting flights), a connecting flight, and another delayed flight. I've been in airports or airplanes for 15 hours, and I'm beginning to think I will never get there. At best, by the time I get there, this trip will have taken 18 hours, and I'd be seven hours later than the itinerary said. At worst - well, I'm on standby for this delayed flight, so it might be even longer. Sigh.
On the other hand - dude, I suck. Seriously? I just had a yummy quesadilla, and I found an outlet so my laptop can start recharging, and - I'm on my way to Florida.

rocking chairs

There are lots of windows in the Charlotte airport. Well, okay, there are lots of windows in any airport, but perhaps I noticed these more because some of them have rocking chairs nearby for people to hang out in. It's insanely Southern and charming!

Pinkberry!

The travel hasn't been ideal so far - my first flight was delayed for an hour and a half, so I missed two connection flights from Houston to Charlotte, where I am now. I'll get in hours later than I had thought; I'm on stand-by for a flight that takes off three hours after I should have landed.
But here's why I'm chuffed, anyway. I'm eating a delightful lunch! There's a little gourmet deli here, so I got a banana and an apple, and it's right across from Pinkberry, which I haven't had for months, and which I love. Who knew that there would be such a delightful thing in an airport?
(Pinkberry, btw, is like frozen yogurt, but with crazily yummy toppings. For a while, it was a fad, and Us magazine had pictures of celebrities eating it. That's not why I like it - just providing context, because I'm helpful that way).

tired, but packed?

I think I've packed everything, but weirdly enough I had space left over at the end. That never happens to me, so now I'm spooked that I forgot something.
This is boring, but that's because I'm so tired. I never sleep well before I go on a trip, and this was no exception: to bed at 2, up at 6:30. This wouldn't be so bad if I were travelling* all day, but I have to be intelligent at work for 8-10 hours first. On the bright side, it might mean that I sleep on the plane.

*I'm mildly annoyed that I have a red underline under this perfectly acceptable British spelling.

mini fangirl squee

I've just watched the first episode of Supernatural tonight, on the hunch that I could fast-forward enough of the CGI and awfulness to enjoy the Winchesters. I don't know that I will watch the whole series, but I was delighted to see that the second episode has a special guest star: Callum Keith Rennie! Who, yeah, is a gruff old hunter guy in this episode, but still - how fun to see him!