Year: 2013

Recipe: Slow Cooked Moroccan Stew

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Dear Internet,
Alright Internet, I’ll get straight to the point: It’s over 90F. It’s going to be hot for days. You want something to eat but you don’t to cook (and this is taking into consideration you’ve already ate your vodka infused freezy-pops and drank enough slurpees for a million brain freezes) and you don’t want to have to keep making a meal every day.  Enter slow cooked Moroccan stew:

MS-ingredients
The ingredients.

Okay, I fudged. There is some cooking, but not a lot. Like 10 minutes. Tops! It won’t hurt, I promise, to turn on your stove.  (Just don’t forget to turn it off when you’re done.)
TheHusband and I have started our split schedules this summer – he is working up north and tending to cabin, while I work down state during the week before heading up to him on the weekends. When we left a few weeks ago to head up north, we cleaned the fridge and pantry out of anything that could possibly rot while we were gone. I knew coming back I’d have to do a small shop for the few days I was in town and that I’d need to do this every week.
Onions, peppers, squash!

The problem is: I don’t cook. Well, I can cook, but when TheHusband is much better at it than me, I don’t see the point. On the flip side, as part of my BECOME SUPER AWESOME project is learning the fundamentals of cooking. While I haven’t gotten there yet (the year is still young…), this exact situation I’m in now is the reason why I wanted to learn the fundamentals of cooking so that I’m not grazing on veggies and hummus for all of my meals for four days.
You can almost smell the cinnamon from here.

Enter Twitter. And Davey. Davey posts he has/is making a nomilicous slow cooked Moroccan stew and did any one want the recipe? I said sure! In addition to sounding delicious, the idea of making a one pot meal, that I didn’t have to watch, and could be eaten over the course of many days appealed. Bonus points: I had 90% of the ingredients already and shopping this week was a breeze since it was essentially chocolate, a box of a cereal, and sugar free Red Bull.
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Slow Cooked Moroccan Stew

Adapted from Davey.
Vegetarian. Dairy Free. Gluten Free.
Prep time: 30-60 minutes
Cook time: 4-8 hours
Ingredients
2-3 Tbsp EV Olive Oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 small zucchini, cut into small chunks
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried chili flakes
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried ginger (or you could use fresh ginger)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cans of diced tomatoes (Chopped will also work.)
2 or 3 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 Tbsp of honey
Good handful of raisins or currants
1 cup of dried apricots, cut into bite sized chunks
1 apple, chopped
1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
4-6 medium potatoes, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup red wine (sweet or dry depending how you want the stew to go) [OPTIONAL]
Instructions

  1. In a pan, heat up the oil and add onion, pepper, zucchini. Cook on med-low heat until veggies soften and the onion gets a little carmalized.
  2. Once veeggies have softened, add cumin, paprika, chili, cinnamon, ginger, and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
  3. Add tomatoes, lemon juice, honey, raisins/currants, and stir well. Simmer for a few more minutes.
  4. Salt and pepper to taste
  5. Turn the crock pot on low and line the bottom with apricots, chick peas, potatoes, apples, and carrots.
  6. Add the mixture from the pan on the top and stir well.
  7. Add wine, and stir again.
  8. Cook on low for 8-10 hours OR on high for 4-6.

Serves 6-8. At least.
Serve with rice (any flavor), couscous, pita chips, or fresh torn up baguette for sopping.
Notes

  • Davey doesn’t give amounts for some things, like he just has “potatoes,” so the amounts listed above is what I used.
  • He recommends pre-cooking the carrots, potatoes, and chick peas BEFORE going into the pot. This seemed like overkill since they would be slow cooking for hours so I opted to skip that part.
  • The only ingredient I omitted from his version is mushrooms as I hate the damn things.
  • I added red wine, upped the amount of a few spices, salt and pepper, swapped veggie oil for olive, used red potatoes, yellow squash for the zucchini, and added an apple.
  • Davey also notes it freezes and reheats well, which makes this a great dish to make if you want something super delicious that you don’t mind eating several days in a row or for a potlock.
  • I marked this vegetarian and not vegan since it contains honey and to stave off controversy.

End result: It was damned delicious. I had two bowls for dinner last night, using pita chips to scoop up the bits. There were enough leftovers to serve me for over a week. Since I got heavy handed on the honey and wine, it was slightly sweeter than I would have liked but overall I loved it.
[donotprint]
x0x0,
Lisa
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This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: July 13, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,
We’re currently ensconced up at the cabin so a lot of what we’re doing is off-line. Who knew that one could exist in a world where they didn’t need a communication device of some kind to relate! Shocking!

Links

x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

A Woman’s Right to Shoes: Thoughts on Being Childfree

Dear Internet,
There is a small storm brewing in my neck of Twitter due to an article recently posted on Medium which posits the idea that those who are childfree (CF) should totes drop everything and help those with kids, because you’re going to change your mind so, karma! And, the article goes on to quote Whitney Houston, the now dead coke addict who farmed out raising of her daughter, because sayeth the dead pop star, the children are our future. OBVIOUSLY, then, a village must be taken and so forth.
There are loads and loads of problems with this article, namely it purports that:

  • People who are CF are so by choice (It’s never about they CAN’T, it’s always about they WON’T)
  • People who are CF have more time / money  ergo our time is not as valuable
  • CF people should support the choices of childful people because, “Children raised with security and love make better adults, and better adults make a better world in twenty-some years,” which supposes that this only happens when mom is cheering them on at a soccer game or dad soothing sick infant. These examples given also perpetuates specific family dynamics, which raised my heckles, but apparently these are the only examples/ways a child can be loved
  • The author cites the US as being one of the few countries where maternity/paternity leave as well as childcare and other social programs are abysmal for parents. I don’t disagree with these challenges, the US is terrible in many modern social practices but to place the crux of this on CF people as if we are the ones who control the government or that because conservatives reacted strongly to the idea of social care is somehow our doing, is downright preposterous, ridiculous, and a grasping at straws. Better social programs across the board benefit everyone, not just families.

Lastly, my biggest, uttermost issue with the article is that it forces me (and others like me) out. Now we have to defend our decisions (or reasons) of why we are currently CF to explain why articles such as this one, written supposedly with the best intentions, makes us gnash our teeth and shake our fists in anger. It is because of this article, and others like it, that continue to perpetuate stereotypes  and lifestyle choices as ones that were made not ones that were made for us, it forces us to defend our reasoning for our private lives which is no ones bidness. You never, almost never, ever see this for those who are childful, at least not in such public forums and with such regularity and acuity as directed to those who are CF.
And that’s bullshit.
Additionally, this perpetuation of the attitude is insulting, it’s degrading, it’s humiliating, and it forces us to put public a very private decision or choice while adding on the layer of if we are not parents or choosing to be parents, our lives are not even remotely complete. Everything that I’ve worked for, TheHusband has worked for, up to this time in our lives means jack. There is not a mini-Lisa running around so obviously I have failed at all the things.
I don’t think I’ve ever discussed my child bearing status in this space and it is not because it wasn’t worth discussing, but it was one of the few things of privacy that I didn’t want to to open up to the world. It begins with that I’m not sure if I can even have children, which I found out about in my 20s. I have polycystic ovarian disease (PCOD), which means there are cysts on my ovaries, which makes my chances of getting pregnant downright miracelous. I’ve been told my chances of conceiving were less than 20%. Now that I’m older, and my child bearing years are closing down, even less. Maybe 10%.  Let’s add in TheHusband’s familial history of mental illness and my own mental illness, coupled with my family history of the same, and the wanting to have a child looks even less tempting. Let us not forget my mother had cancer of the vulva and my grandmother had cancer of ovaries, and what should be something pretty easy peasy turns out to be a big ole complicated and convoluted mess.
A lot of conversations stemmed on Twitter today about this, after I started ranting natch, and it felt like everyone, breeders and CFs, were pretty much in the agreement that the author of the article was a self-righteous, over privileged, lazy asshole who wanted someone else to raise her children.  It was not about a kumbaya “it takes a village” moment she was attempting to prostylize, rather, it was ALLLLLL about her. TheHusband, who is one of the most rational people I know, threw out her argument line by line by summing up her own inaptitude to handle her responsibilities so she’s shuffling them off to someone else.
No would disagree parents need help, and no one would disagree or shy away from giving them the help they needed, but to demand we do so simply because our responsibilities are different is absurd.
And painful.
Articles like this also bring up one painful point for me – it’s not so much that I won’t have children, but that my choice to have them was stripped away due to medical necessity. I don’t have an option to choose  whether or not I wanted to have kids – I was just told it was not going potentially happen. This fine detail point, this removal of choice, is the open wound I keep guarded and close to me, knowing the day will come (sooner then I had hoped) where I am going to have to grieve over something I may never get to have.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2003

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: June 29, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

Weekly watching: True Blood, Sons of Anarchy, Burn Notice, Borgia, DaVinci’s Demons, Mad Men, The Borgias, Veep, The Vampire Diaries

Links

x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

holding up a corner of the sky

Dear Internet,
The other day I was on the toilet, reading National Geographic as you do, when I had a panic attack.
Let me repeat this:
I’m on the toilet.
Taking a dump.
Reading National Geographic.
Having a panic attack.
I was more surprised rather than panicked about what was happening, and thankfully the attack came and went fairly quickly. This little episode seems to sum up what’s been going on with my brain as of late, which is to say, an even more chaotic mess.
A few weeks ago I was scheduled to see my medicating doctor for my monthly visit and a few days before the appointment, I had irrational fight with a friend online. The fight was not serious by any context, but I was able to step back and see what is going on before it DID get serious. But the fact the fight happened at all was a huge wake-up call.  A few days before that, TheHusband made an off hand comment I had been acting “weird,” but he didn’t really qualify it other than he didn’t think things were going well with me and he was concerned.
During the session with my medicating therapist, when I relayed all of this to him, it sounded like the lithium was not working as well as he had hoped. I agreed. He upped me another 300mg, for a total of 1500mg to be split over the course of the day (morning, afternoon, night).
A week and half later, I find myself sitting in the shadows of a room steaming over god knows what.
I got some relief on the first few days after the dosage was upped, but since then I’ve been super lethargic and now overly anxious. The lethargy is destroying much of my productivity because I have zero motivation and will and it’s a struggle to stay awake. I’m bordering on always being on panic mode. That feeling gets  intensified when all of these fixes for ffor my brain chaos stop working and the cycle seemingly always repeats itself.
I can’t get any relief and I feel like I am going crazy on fixing my crazy.
Tomorrow I am calling my medicating doctor to get off of Lithium. I’m not sure what has changed with my body chemistry in the last month but I thought the lithium was at least a cure-all for my bipolar and instead, it’s now destroying me. He’s made suggestions of putting me on Depakote to work with the lithium but so far I’ve read or heard nothing but terrible reviews.  I’m at the point right now, six months after starting it, that I have not seen enough evidence to continue taking it.

A space of her own.

The quasi-fight TheHusband and I are having is about space. Some couples fight about money, some couples fight about temperature control, TheHusband and I fight about space. The fact we have too much of it, it seems.
Throbbing Manor, including the finished bits of the basement, is 3200 sqft. According to my European friends, I live in a goddamned mansion. According to the American contingent, we live in a nice place. We know it is too big, and we also know how we use space doesn’t mesh with the flow of the house. Yes, the house is nice.Yes, we live in a desirable neighborhood. But this house isn’t us. We don’t use the space that is here, instead we hang out in only a few of the many rooms. Because we’re not hanging out in many of  the rooms, wer’re not buying any furniture, household goods, or wall art to finish the rooms off. We’ve lived here for 2.5 years and people have asked me for updated pictures and I’m embarrassed to say there aren’t any.
The sunroom (or solarium) has been one of those rooms where we go back and forth on what to do with it. First it was indoor/outdoor furniture to turn it into a cozy reading/hang out area, then it was double it up with plants, then it was get a drafting desk so TheHusband could draw and paint, and I could calligraphy.
In the nearly two years we’ve been having this discussion, we’ve bought three large plants, of which one is nearly dead and we’ve commissioned the handcrafted table that goes over the absurdly long radiator. In the winter, during the holiday times, if we’re feeling like putting a tree up, it goes in here. But any of the aforementioned items I’ve mentioned we were considering on purchasing – we haven’t purchased. The indoor/outdoor furniture is never right for his taste, we can’t find  a drafting desk to meet his needs, and so forth and so on. Finally, I decided to take a stand and turn the space into a writing area.
And this is where the argument starts.
TheHusband states I’m taking over space by putting my stamp everywhere (duh, I live here. I should be able to do that anyway!) and I now have essentially two offices. Then he’s pissed because we had to move one of his plants (a lime tree) to another space in the room, but the damn tree is dying anyway. A 6′ lateral move is not going to hasten its death!
Secondly, getting to know myself as intimately as I have in the last six months, in order to cope with my ADHD drug free, I need solitude space of no interruption. This means TheHusband. He says I should just close the door to my office on the second floor, but it isn’t the same. Sitting here in solarium has a different vibe then siting upstairs. The view is better. I’m away from external noise that comes from the other side of the house. The chair is not as comfy so the likelihood of me fucking off while doing work is less likely. And most importantly, I’m close to my books.
The final big reason is we decided to turn the bedroom into a gadget free zone once we get to the point where we move the bedroom TV up to the cabin, forcing us to watch TV in the Rumpus Room. I’m started that process early by moving my laptop out of the room and into the solarium. At least here I can work with minimal interruption.
I told TheHusband if he buys a drafting desk, we buy the indoor/outdoor furniture, or any of the other things we talked about doing to this room, I’ll gladly move this desk back upstairs and live will continue on as normal. My desktop, TheHusband’s old laptop that is wire bound now, is slowly dying so the move may be sooner than I think.
Pro tip: Marriage is overrated.
x0x0x,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: June 22, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian

Reading

Life After Life ( Amazon | Local Library | Goodreads)
by Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson, along with Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, and several other writers, are ones whom no matter what argument I make to save cash, I always pre-order their books when said boks are released.  For Atkinson this year, I found out a friend was going to give me an ARC she had received of Life After Life, so I dutifully canceled my pre-order. Except, I apparently didn’t. The pre-ordere arrived before my trip to see my friend, so I kept it in the hopes I could get it finished before heading to see her so we can talk about the book. It didn’t quite work out that way for it’s two months later and I’m just now getting started on the book.
While I would describe myself as an ardent Atkinson fangirl, I’m only 25 pages in to this title and have no opinion of this offering as of yet. But at least I’m reading, and that’s something.

Watching

  • Case Histories, Season 2
    I found out season 2 of Case Histories was being shown in the UK by accident, even though I had thought I had tapped myself into the places that would keep me abreast of such things. I greedily watched all three episodes in two sittings, and I can’t get enough of Jackson Brodie or who he is or what he does. Sure, sure, Jason Isaacs isn’t bad to look at, but the tortured soul of a man who walks (rather runs) to his own moral code is amazing to behold. I don’t know if there are plans to show it in the US on PBS this year or if there will be a third season or if Atkinson has plans for another Brodie book. I’m really hoping all of those things become true, the Brodie world of Edinburgh is one where I want to live.
  • True Blood
    Speaking of tortured men with complicated pasts, True Blood started its sixth season this past Sunday. To me, TB is always the start of the summer, the days feel better knowing I have TB to watch on Sundays. As for the plot, well, what’s being set up in the first episode of S6 is slow. TheHusband and I raised several eyebrows during the hour and we’re hoping TB picks up some speed (and interest!) during the forthcoming season. TheHusband put forth the show has finally jumped the shark, but I don’t think that’s happened. Yet. I DO wish they would clarify more on Pam’s dick whipped attitude towards Eric, since it’s been made pretty clear they were never really lovers in so much as BFFs during their 100 years together. Pam’s randomly shown weakness for Eric when certain conditions apply (but not all conditions that match, just some) is annoying.
  • Sons of Anarchy
    I had no interest in this show, really, until Beth forwarded me a video of Walton Goggins (Boyd Crowder on Justified) as Venus Van Dam, a transvestite prostitute on SOA. After getting over myself of extreme jealous of how beautiful Goggins makes as a woman, I decided to check the show out. I had been working on finding a nice long show I can get into while I do things around the house, knit/cross-stitch, or fall asleep to and SOA fits that bill. TheHusband, on the other hand, was razzing me that I seem to be haphazardly watching all the FX originals as I come across them (The Americans, Archer, Justified, Louie (TheHusband’s choice), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TheHusband’s choice)), but hey! That’s ok. FX has created really great content in the last few years and they are pushing the boundaries of what network television should look like. Other networks better start taking notes.
  • Nurse Jackie
    Just when it looks like Jackie’s life is finally getting under control, a twist. There is always a twist. While I do like this show, this season was definitely not the best and it ranked pretty poorly. Dr. Roman? She just needs to go. Though I do love Zooey’s new love interest and that made me very happy how that panned out.

Weekly watching: Burn Notice, Borgia, DaVinci’s Demons, Mad Men, The Borgias, Veep, The Vampire Diaries

Links

Reviews

Fitbit Flex
Lisa-mas was a few weeks ago and presents were still rolling in so I decided to divvy up the reviews over the next few weeks to not overload this post. This week, it’s the Fitbit Flex.
I know Fitbit has been popular around the social sphere for some time, but what got me interested was when Kate and I were discussing fitness regimes and she mentioned the Flex, a Fitbit product designed to be a bracelet with the Fitbit unit cleverly hidden and unobtrusive.  I’ve tried pedometers in the past and found most of them lacking. I know some friends have had good luck with phone apps for sleeping and pedometering, but I found this was not a particular good solution since many pairs of my bottoms don’t always have pockets to put the phone in and the way some pedometers are designed to be clipped, also doesn’t work with how my body is shaped.
The line of Fitbit products are designed to track, learn, and help you manage:

  • Fitness goals 
  • Food consumption
  • Water consumption
  • Sleeping
  • Much, much more

Much of this is done by your input on the website or app but the core information, steps walked/calories burned, is done by the device. You can manage, within the app and website, all of your health needs fairly simply and easily, which is of great interest to me.  It is also shower proof and mostly water proof (though, I’d probably take it off for swimming).
What I really loved is the Flex, because it was something I could wear, like jewelry, and only time I’d have to take it off is to recharge the Fitbit unit, which is about once a week. When I wore the Flex to work, one my student workers thought it was a post-modern bracelet, another person though it was a fancy watch. Inso far as design aesthetic goes, Fitbit gets top scores.
TheHusband ordered the Flex and the accessory bands from Amazon, and the items was on massive back order until mid-late July at Amazon and at Fitbit.com. So imagine my surprise when I received the Flex a few days after my birthday! But the accessory bands, which were scheduled to arrive first, still haven’t arrived and are still marked on backorder.
The package comes with the Fitbit unit, two bracelets sized small and large in a single color (you can choose between black or slate, TheHusband ordered slate), charging dongle, and wifi synch dongle. Setting up the Fitbit was fairly easy, as well as setting up an account. I choose to create an account rather then use Facebook or Google as the login. You can also find friends via Facebook/Google but Kate and I found this was kind of a pain in the arse (Kate had ordered another Fitbit product a few weeks prior). In addition to the website dashboard, there is also an app, available for iOS and Android. You can also sync with other products, like MyFitnessPal, which rocks if you’re already using MyFitnessPal to track your food.
Downsides:

  • You can sync your Fitbit to your phone using bluetooth when you have the app installed, and you can synch the Fitbit when the dongle is plugged into a computer, but you cannot synch it with any other mobile devices using bluetooth. This means if you want to synch it to your iPad or another device, you’re out of luck.
  • The iOS app is available on the iPhone only, and while you can install it on the iPad, it’s clunky. You also don’t have all of the options available you do when it’s in its native environment.
  • The Fitbit Flex system includes the bracelets, Fitbit unit, charging dongle, wifi synch dongle, and yet they did not include a pouch or any kind of carrying case for travel. I was able to find a small pouch to use to hold all the accouterments (and have space for the other bracelets), but it just seemed odd the pouch/carrying case was not included or even made available in the store as an accessory.
  • Going into sleep mode, to track my sleep habits, can be a bit wonky.
  • The dashboard via the web is different than the app version, which is okay, but some of the options available on the website are not available on the app, which is annoying. This always seems to be the biggest problem I run into with software developed for the web and the mobile apps come later: it’s assumed behaviors are not the same in both places, or expectations, when many of them are.

Overall, I really like the Flex. My goal is to figure out what I’m doing now and then improve on it to get more healthy. I also love that I can sync MyFitnessPal with Fitbit so that makes things easier for tracking food/exercise. Fitbit also uses gamification, which can be fun, but since I’m still pretty low on the totem pole on some things, it doesn’t seem to have the thrill yet. I do like how I want to walk everywhere to improve my  total steps per day, but step count on the app is slightly off I’m a spaz and move around a lot without necessarily walking, thus the Fitbit counts those as steps. But so far, out of the other things i’ve tried, this is a really good way to get started getting fit.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 011

My #ALA2013 (Social) Schedule

One of my goals today was to get my ALA Annual schedule in somewhat manageable order before the conference next week since I knew time was going to be precious over the course of the next few days AND I didn’t want to be caught unawares when I got to the conference. After going through the scheduler backwards and forwards numerous times, adding in meeting not on the official list, and food plans, I blanched when I saw  how heavy I had booked myself. Some time slots had as little as two sessions planned, others as many as six. All of them, to some degree, equally important.
Originally, like my ACRL pre-conference post,  I was going to load up my complete schedule here and so that people could find me and I could easily have it on my phone. Until I loaded the calendering from scheduler directly into my Google calendar and wept.  (I apparently also broke Google calendar as I cannot even get it to load right now, and for that I’m sorry.)
So instead most of the below is my pre-arranged breakfast/lunch plans along with my after hours social obligations. If there is a Facebook event available, I linked to it but you should check out the fairly complete list of after-hours socials  compiled by my favorite metal head, Lauren, for all the details on the events.  As I’m leaving late Monday afternoon, my event calendaring ends around the lunch hour on Monday.
You can find me around the conference areas pretty easily: I’ll be the tall, short haired, person wearing one of my bazillion nerdy tshirts.  This is specifically important if you want one of the #libtechwomen ribbons I’ll be handing out while I’m at ALA.
Lastly, if you want to meet up at one of the social events below or on the conference floor itself, you can always follow me on the twitters.

Friday

18:00 – ? Circulating Ideas Friday Night Dinner, (Kitty O’Sheas)
19:30 – 22:00 ALA Play (Sheraton Chicago Ballroom)
22:00 – ? ALA Dance Party (Ay Chiwowa, Chicago)
22:00 – ? STACKS! Soul Librarian Dance Party & Benefit for the Read/Write Library (Late Bar, 3534 W. Belmont Ave. at Drake)

Saturday

07:00 – 10:00 Dewey Update Breakfast  (Room N230a, McCormick)
10:00 – 12:00 ALA CraftCon (Uncommons, McCormick)
11:30 – 13:00 Innovative Customer Luncheon at ALA (Hyatt Regency Room 10CD, McCormick)
13:00 – 14:30 ALA Think Tank for Council Shawarma Meetup (Oasis Cafe)
19:00 – 21:00 Library Journal and Tumblr Present SET PHASERS TO INTERNET (Blue Frog’s Local 22)
20:30 – ? ALA Tweetup (Elephant & Castle)
22:00 – 03:00 ALA2013 After Hours – Local 22 – EveryLibrary and Librarian Wardrobe Party (Blue Frog’s Local 22)

Sunday

07:30 – ? Alexander Street Press Breakfast (Continental Ballroom, Hilton Chicago)
07:30 – ? OCLC Update Breakfast (Room E354a, McCormick)
10:30 – 11:30 RandomHouse Fall2013 Book Brunch (Room N227A, McCormick North)
13:00-14:30 Launching Online Special Collections using CONTENTdm (Adler Room 24B, Hyatt Regency McCormick)
17:30 – 20:00 LITA Happy Hour (Fado Irish Pub)
18:00 – 20:00 GLBTRT Social at ALA Annual! (Ann Sather)
21:00 – ? Biblio Follies 2nd Ed. (The Backroom)

Monday

08:30 – 10:00 CONTENTdm User Group Meeting (Room N135, McCormick)
11:00 – 11:30 ExLibris Meeting (Booth #217, McCormick)
12:00 – 13:00 The OCLC President’s Luncheon (Lakeside Ballroom (E354a), McCormick)

One of the 12 names of Odin

Dear Internet,
Today, everyone is posting about their grand adventures with their fathers, or reminiscing of the ones they had long past. For  me, it’s a day of deep sorrow.

My pops, Edison (1927 – 2001), circa 1952.

For reasons only my mother knows, she scythed a field of young potential connections between my father and I beginning with my birth, and then salted the earth that owned those stalks so that by the time my father passed away in 2001, he and I were barely on speaking terms and I knew nothing about him.  It would not be until later, oh so much later, to find out much of what my mother told me was not actual truths but a series of lies she built around her own notion of truth to protect something she has yet to reveal.
When I was very young, my mother started laying down the path of the potentially of my father having molested me. The actual conversation of what trying to figure out what my mother ment, that stemmed from her lines, began in my teenager years which consisted of me asking and confronting her.  These conversations, at least, are still pretty clear in my head even if the outcome at the time, from her lips, was muddled.
There are two things you, dear reader, must know. The first is my parents separated when I was five months old, so the total amount of time, as a child, I lived with my father was less than a year.  Due to the custodial agreements, with me now living in the US and him in Canada, I rarely saw him for visits. The second thing you must know is my father is neither an angel nor is he the devil. He could read at an eighth grade level and was working on his high school diploma when he died. He was a recovering alcoholic. He had a very generous and had a big heart. He wanted me to have the world.
According to my mother, during the many trips I took with my father as a child when I would go to visit during vacations, there was whispers being made because of his age in relation to mine – 45 years – and what he could possibly be doing with such a young child? The whispers apparently came from hotel clerks when we would go traveling to amusement parks and such all over southern Ontario and from his landladies from where he was renting his apartments, and other places. Apparently, at one point, police were called numerous times on suspicion of kidnapping and abuse.
When I prod my mother now about these things to clarify and to know, she says she cannot remember. It was a long time ago. Why does it matter? Why can’t I let it go? (Because I cannot remember these instances you speak of mother!)
Then one day I came to the realization that:

  • If my father had molested me, my mother continually sent me back to him time and time again; she didn’t protect me
  • If my father had not molested me, she continued to pour the gasoline on this line of thinking for years and she literally destroyed any chance of me having a relationship with him, even after I had become an adult and had begun my own life

It was upon this day of realization, I stopped having any and all contact with my mother for I could not conceiving of a world where a person would willingly send their child off to be hurt OR would lie about unspeakable horrors to appease their own agenda. (We’re not the Lannisters!)
In my heart, I feel like if something did happen, but it was not with my father, but with someone else close to the family.  Who? I don’t know. Infamously, I have no memory of my life before the age of 12, sometimes it feels like I sprung up fully formed like Athena.
From what I know now, and from what he was like during my teenage and later years, I never  or ever felt like he was a threat to me sexually or otherwise. I never felt like something was “wrong,” only that my mother kept insisting something was wrong.
And I’m still coming to grips that I’ll never know the truth of the whys and hows of my mother’s reasoning to lie. I  also am still working on accepting I will never have a relationship with my father and no matter how much I yell I AM SO FUCKING SORRY! to the void of the world, or cuddle his urn while murmuring like an insane person, this will never feel right. It will never be right. No matter how many tears of that are stripped from me, I will never ever have that chance to make it up to him.
This would be the point where I tell those of you with living fathers of all kinds, to love, cherish, and respect them. But I’m too sad and too angry to be graceful. This is not a day of celebration, this is my day of mourning. I cannot be gracious when my heart feels so utterly broken.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: June 15, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Reading

Finished

Watching

  • Burn Notice
    We have a love hate relationship with this show: Fiona kicks ass, as you do, and Sam’s “Oh woe! Look at my handsome aging face and note I’m just here to get royalties” schtick is not as grating as one would think, but after awhile, the over arching storyline seems to get more muddled with each passing season. This will be the last season of Burn Notice, which it turns out,  makes me sad.
  • Game of Thrones
    If you’re paying attention on the Internet, you know what happens in the second to last episode of GoT, also known as Red Wedding. Because of this, the final episode for season three was very anti climatic and seemed to be almost, but not quite, a throw away. Some things are finally realised, through I do wish someone would just kill Theon Greyjoy and get his bit over with – he seems to be a pretty useless addition (and interestingly, only a very deep back ground filler when they can’t rustle anything else up to kill time) for the show. TheHusband sent me a link after the season finale to a great story on Grantland that is incredibly invaluable to anyone who has not read the series. Despite of some of the many flaws in the show, am I eagerly awaiting season 4? Do bears shit in the woods?

Weekly watching:  Borgia, DaVinci’s Demons, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Veep, The Vampire Diaries

Links

  • ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)’ Still Makes $500,000 a Year

x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: June 8, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • Escape to the Country
    Set up similarly to House Hunters, the idea behind Escape to the Country the buyer is looking to make a move from city to the country, sometimes from one part of England to another. Three houses are shown: Two that are known, and one that is the mystery house. The buyers can choose to buy any of the houses shown or choose not to buy any – which is the big difference between it and HH.  The ending of the episode is not always stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.
  • Great Houses with Julian Fellowes
    Fellowes, he of Downton Abbey, takes his expertise and pedigree and tours the great homes of the United Kingdom, giving not only a historical entree into the house but the people, the land, and the era that surround it. I felt like I was watching an episode of History Detectives except with British accents at times, for I thought Fellowes spent a lot of time on the social history of the area rather than on the house itself. Only two episodes long, the show felt oddly rushed and   compact.
  • Doctor Who
    I don’t even know where to begin with this show. The ending? Then the departure of Matt Smith? The whole season felt forced and unnatural to me. Like it was stretching to be filler rather than tell a good story.
  • Rectify
    The season has ended, as it begun, not with a bang but with a precipitous crawl. Will I be watching season two? You bet. (A summary can be found here.)
  • Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls

Weekly watching:  Borgia, DaVinci’s Demons, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, The Borgias, Veep, Game of Thrones, The Vampire Diaries.

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

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