Anakashiko

Since my last post I've gotten my husband back for a brief interlude before he headed off to Japan to do dissertation research for three months - he's now blogging at Anakashiko.

Oh, and I'm 16 weeks pregnant! A few developments, I guess...

Tree live!

Got a call from Miss A yesterday, asking if I wanted to go with her to see a friend of hers sing at a Chinese Jewish place on Fairfax called Genghis Cohen. Her friend's name is Tree and she fronts a band of two - one guy on guitar and bass and the other quite literally "on" drum - he sits on a wooden cube, tapping it between his legs like a bongo, and it is somehow amplified. I tried googling "electric percussion box" but got nothing useful. Wonder what that thing's called?

Anyway, Tree was great. She sang about six songs, all her own except a cover of A-ha's "Take On Me" which was great fun. My favorite was "Minefield": "I'm a minefield, you have to tiptoe around me because you never know when I'll explode." It sounded like Fiona Apple as sung by Lucinda Williams.

Afterwards Miss A came to my place and we had a piece of the green tea and black sesame cheesecake I had left over from having photo_re and phdave over for dinner Sunday. They brought me a sweet little hyacinth bulb which is now blooming. I had quite a weekend, in fact - out drinking at the Cozy Friday with Miss A and Bree. Bree had a dinner party Saturday - check out the pictures at her blog, Foodville! Then, a simple dinner at my place with the Two Fish crew Sunday night. I made (vegetarian) harissa, a Moroccan soup with chickpeas and thin noodles. The cheesecake was what I was really excited about, and had to buy a springform pan for. I was almost done making it Sunday afternoon when I noticed the last step: allow to set overnight in the refrigerator! I was like to die, as they say in the south. But it ended up having about four hours in the fridge and didn't slump when I cut it, so it was all right. We had it while we watched the Sopranos.

Of cars, committees, and connubiality

Whoops, fell off the wagon again. Here's an update on the major events in my life:

I've been involved in a search committee to add a member to our monographic cataloging section. I'm too wise to say anything about it here, even under my thin cloak of anonymity. Let's just say that it's a fascinating process - you'll learn a lot about the process, your institution, and your co-workers. I would heartily recommend that any new librarian jump at the chance. Plus you may get some great free meals.

Z is back in NC teaching, and it's going very well. We take advantage of our Verizon "in" plan for an hour or so each night. He's going to visit frequently during the spring semester class, though he won't be able to come back during the five-week summer course he'll be teaching in May and June. Then he'll be back, but... his dissertation committee insists that he spend at least three months researching in Japan. For various reasons, we settled on a three-month span falling August through November. Sigh...

Finally, we had a fender bender Saturday while Jeff was visiting. Got hit from behind while waiting at a light on Overland Avenue. Luckily no one was hurt and the other driver is fully insured. I'm driving a rented Nissan Murano while the Camry is in the shop. I feel like ducking when I park it in our building's parking area under the first floor.

Back in LA

I'm trying to get back in the swing of things at work, where we are infested by ants. We flew back from Texas last night (Monday), deciding not to volunteer to get bumped because there would be no guaranteed seats until Thursday. This Saturday Z flies to North Carolina to teach for six months. Loneliness looms, and we have much to do.

Good news from photo_re at Two Fish - a job with our crosstown rival!

Boxing Day

we had a nice Christmas Eve, with the Houston Texans-Jacksonville Jaguars game for the menfolk and some game women, and shopping for me and Peggy. We did a yankee swap at Aunt S's, and if I do say so myself, our gifts were a hit. The 20 11/12 male cousin was very excited about the book "Cooking with Beer," and his dad would have happily kept the two DVDs of westerns if Z hadn't gone and stolen them back when his turn came!
Christmas was not the morning affair it is for my family. Everyone slept late (I slept until 11!) and eventually we ate breakfast, looked at our stockings, and we "kids" (ages 28-31) got out Santa gifts under the tree. The wrapped gifts got piled into the car, an dwe went to grandma's house to open them there. Both nights involved rousing games of Catchphrase - the best game ever!

We headed out late and saw Syriana. It was good, though hard to keep track of all the characters. I enjoyed hearing the deliberate movie Arabic (George Clooney's was an incoherent mumble, though).

We're off for Dallas this morning to visit a great aunt, and eventually to hill country and San Antonio.

Dateline: Missouri City

We landed in Bush International in Houston late last night, met up with Hank and Peggy, and drove out to Zawji's aunt and uncle's place in adjacent Missouri City, Texas. They have a Texas-themed home, as most of his relatives here do. Stars on the light fixtures, Texas-shaped this and that, Texas flag bedspreads. Someone once told me that Virginians were second only to Texans in state pride, but it's a distant second, I tell you what. There may be a single Virginia-themed tchotchke in an old Virginny-an's home, but nothing like this! it's all in good fun, though. Z's aunt was quite impressed when I told her that Sam Houston was from my hometown in Virginia, last time we were here.

Peggy and I are making plans for last-minute shopping, etc. There are various family events going on over the next few days, with different members hosting parties and different presents to be given to different groups. Tomorrow night is a Yankee swap/White elephant party. We were talking about it, me and Hank and Peggy and Aunt J, when I realized something and said "Oh, I forgot Z and I aren't one person. We have to get another gift!" Because each participant in the swap needs a present to swap. They were tickled. We are really a unit!

Google calendar

A couple of weeks ago my boss was extolling the virtues of using an online calendar. She said that when you go through peer review (the promotion/"tenure" process for librarians) it's great to be able to go back and see every meeting, project, activity, and conference you took part in. I wasn't too excited but thought that if Google had an online calendar I'd give it a whirl. So naturally I googled "google calendar." It turns out that the Google-watchers of the world were at that moment on pins and needles about a possible announcement of a Google calendar - there had been a calendaring conference (!!) only two days before at which the announcement was expected, but it hadn't happened. All the bloggers and columnists had vague forecasts of an announcement any day now, but it hadn't happened yet.

Round about the same time, I found about the Google notifications service. You can list keywords that you're interested in, and you'll get an email with links to where they are used in Google discussion boards. I added Google calendar - nothing relevant yet. I also just received Google's first newsletter for librarians. It includes an explanation of the ranking system for results, in obviously not-too-specific terms.