Photo flashback of the week

1976ish, with Cleopatrick (one of the strays born in our garage, named Cleopatra until his first, somewhat illuminating, visit to the vet). Until a few years ago when this picture resurfaced I didn't understand my penchant for grey tabbies with green eyes. Not that I'm a Freudian, but childhood experiences do seem to account for a lot...

Rounding the bend

Well, it appears that my fourth season in Spookytown has just begun - after a beginning of March that was colder than most of (eerily-heralding-a-global-warming-apocalypse-warm) January, suddenly it appears to be spring. For example, crocuses are everywhere, in particular on the other side of the creek that is across from my house.
It's a veritable carpet, and awfully sweet.
The trees in front of the house are budding as well, and I imagine will be all leafy and green in the blink of an eye.
By contrast, I myself am not filled to bursting with barely suppressed vitality. A few weeks ago I started taking some medication again to combat the resurgence of a stomach condition I thought I had under control, and a few days ago I broke out in hives that got so severe that I actually went to a doctor right away (my usual m.o. would be to suffer for at least a week before getting help), so now I'm on drowsy-making prescription antihistamines to control the hives. This morning, reading the literature for Medication One, I learned that some people can have negative reactions such as itching and skin rashes, and suddenly realized that I am taking sleep-inducing Medication Two to counteract an allergic reaction to Medication One! Which seems a bit much. So I am sitting here in my backyard, covered with puffy itchy red blotches on my face and extremities and periodically nodding off, and I guess I'll stay this way (well, not outside) until tomorrow, when I'll call my doctor and try to get a replacement for Medication One. It's kind of funny, really. Well, except for being so damn itchy!

Photo flashback of the week

I ended up at an open-mike poetry slam type thing the other night in downtown Spookytown (it came on after the musical performance I had actually gone to see, where J-ka's friend's musical group sang songs about Walter Benjamin's Moscow-based love life, among other things). The emcee mentioned a series of poets, one of whom was Bukowski, and it reminded me of this teddy bear boutique in the fancy old part of Krakow called Galeria Bukowski. Charles Bukowski, just the kind of guy you'd want to buy your enormous Polish teddy bear from, no?

Happy International Women's Day!

To me, and to all the ladies out there. I hope all of you have someone to salute you Soviet-style, with a tiny bouquet of flowers enhanced with baby's breath, green tissue paper, clear plastic and a big bow, or to cook you dinner (perhaps makaroni po flotski with a beet salad on the side?) and maybe even clear up the dishes afterward. This is the day to understand that you are special and appreciated, my XX friends, so that you can maybe deal with being put upon, abused, and taken for granted the other 364 (or 365 in leap years).

S prazdnikom! (Happy holiday!)

(P. S. Poster translation: 8th of March: Day of the Emancipation of Women)

Conference entertainment (take it where you can get it)

I have been conferencing up a storm this weekend, starting with Friday afternoon when I did my first real paper recycling ever, combining two previously presented 20-minute papers into a single 20-minute paper (and I thought that was a good idea why? In the end it was still a lot of work to do all the necessary cutting and still end up with something demi-coherent). The conference is actually local, which is nice, and has some really prominent people in the field, which is also nice. As I look around each day, though, noticeably absent as always are attractive male counterparts for the many attractive female socio and anthy types running around. On Friday afternoon, though, one guy caught my eye in an cutely disheveled, somewhat nerdy, Europeanesque kind of way. Then at the opening reception he turned out to be standing basically next to me, part of a conversation circle that was periodically intersecting with mine. I glanced at his nametag, you know, just to see, and did a big double take. (Possibly cartoony and visible! Though I don't think anyone noticed.) Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the Turkish textbook that has been my daily companion for these last 5 weeks, pointed to one of the author names, and said to him, "Isn't this you?" And in fact it was. I was pretty pleased -- it's not that often that you are oh-so-happily interacting with a book every day and then its author pops up next to you, you know? Sadly, however, I seem to be in the waning part of my fertility cycle (see below), because although he extended an invitation to come visit his Nederlandish University and talk Turcology (including bike riding around the Frisian Islands, home to the language that is genetically closest to English), I don't think he really meant it. If only the conference had been a week ago...