Topo, Anyone?

Saturday and Sunday of this Memorial Day weekend, we drove about an hour outside of Laramie and did a two-day hike in the Platte River Wilderness. We had planned to make it a three-day hike, but when it started raining on Sunday, that plan changed. I mean, we don't have to be out there when it's raining, and it's not actually fun to be out there when it's raining, so why should we?

The Platte River Wilderness is a lovely section, with trails that are not too strenuous. The trails there are lacking one thing however: signage. The first 5 miles or so (on Saturday) were lovely. Hiking through forests and down along the sides of a creek. We only lost the trail a couple of times, once when it crossed a creek and we didn't -- instead, we hiked uphill for about 30 minutes, following what looked like a trail but turned out to be someone else's diversion. Just around the corner from that crossing (once we found the trail again) we found a fantastic little campsite, where someone had taken the time to dig out fairly flat spots for a couple of tents. Fairly flat, I say, because we slid downhill most of the night, in our sil-nylon tent. Will probably have to do something about that (the sliding part, I mean -- we can't do much about the campsite being set on a hill).

The next day, we decided to follow the Platte Ridge Trail to its intersection with the Douglas Creek Trail. Mind you, we had no topographical map, as the guy at the Forest Service office in Laramie had pooh-poohed the notion of needing a topo map in the Platte River Wilderness. At one point, where the Platte Ridge Trail was supposed to branch to the east and the west (I think), there was only a stump of a signpost left; no direction at all except for a few odd symbols cut into the trees. What exactly did that orange arrow mean? I'll never know.

Needless to say, we never found where the Platte Ridge Trail and the Douglas Creek Trail intersect. Instead, we hiked through a good bit of marshy swampy trail and then decided we'd had enough. As it was, we hiked about 13 miles on Sunday, enough to merit a big cheeseburger in Woods Landing. With homemade fries that were heaven itself, and not on my diet.

Monday we spent cleaning up and putting away our gear. And tonight we have company for dinner and to spend the night, so I must push away from the keyboard and get around to putting sheets on the bed in the guest room.

47

I just finished reading an advance copy of Walter Moseley's 47. Not impressed. I wanted to be, but sadly, I am not. The book is a mixture of slave narrative and science fiction; the slave narrative is beautiful and thoughtful, while the science fiction I can only call sad and strange. And I usually love science fiction!

Here are the elements of the science fiction that didn't sit well with me:
1. It wasn't consistent. When 47 (the main character) receives Tall John's (the alien) cha, he becomes more knowledgeable about the world, about philosophy, about life, about technology, etc., but nothing else about him, except for his physicality, changes.
2. The author described some elements of the story too simplisticly -- perhaps in an effort to appeal to a young adult audience. For example, Wall (evil creature out to destroy the universe) is after a "green powder" that can be found "buried in the earth." He has to use Tall John's spaceship to get the green powder . . .but how did Wall get there in the first place? Why call it "green powder" when other elements are given special names?

That's enough, I guess. On to the next one.

I'm sad that I didn't like it.

Writing poetry, again.

In honor of the writing project retreat I attended this weekend, I am going to post here a revised copy of "Wings," and a couple of others that I did some serious changing to.
By the way, can I just say that any teacher alive would benefit from participating in writing project work? I've never actually done the workshop, but I helped to plan an invitational this weekend, and just being around those folks helped me to feel invigorated about my poetry again.

Thanks, all of you.

Plus, I found out some great information about the turtle as a symbol for planet Earth, the personification of goddess energy, representative of the continuing cycle of give and take, and possessing shields that protect us from harm. Cool.

Wings

One grand and coming day
I will sprout wings.
The swirling, lifting breeze will
chime out the hours
as the time grows near.

Small bumps will jump from my shoulder blades,
Itchy feathers one by one sweep my arms
Bits of down float sunlit through the air.

As I gain altitude,
an eagle's-eye perspective:
Roads float above green hills,
Horizon angles into the suspended blue sky.

Will my aerial view
Affect my earthly sight?




That Hat

That hat struts in,
feather waving
trench coat swirling.
It pauses
and surveys
with a tilted head and
a cynical, jaunty eye
the crowd of coffee-sippers,
blissfully unaware of its presence.

The crowd bobs
and sips
and sits
unimpressed
unreactive.

Nevertheless,
that hat maintains its integrity,
its pride,
its sense of place,
and wavers on
to an appointed seat
in glory.



First Snow

The first snow of the season
is a blessing, a baptism, an epiphany.
One that appears,
rebelliously,
on Halloween.

Slipping softly over the jack o'lanterns
hissing out candles
Lightly anointing the foreheads
of the assembled pirates, ballerinas,
monsters, and ladybugs,
it drips and floats.

Here, they huddle around the front porch light,
offering up the emptiness of their bags,
praying for Snickers or Skittles
or peanut butter cups.

As they walk away, toward the
luminarias and fake spiders next door,
the snow fills their footprints,
erasing all evidence of their presence.

Here's the new tent I'm thinking of buying -- it's the Lunar Solo, by Six Moon Designs. 

Ass-Kicking

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Laramie. Sunny, breezy, and cool -- the way I WISH summers had been growing up in Texas. So, I decided to let my cats hang out in the back yard, eat grass, roll around in the sun, etc. I propped the back door open with a stone and went to sit in my easy chair and read (can only do THAT in the summer!).

I wasn't really surprised to hear a commotion break out -- there are a couple of neighborhood cats that treat our yard as theirs -- but I WAS surprised when I went out back and saw Loner (see picture below) kicking the crap out of the big orange and white tom who loves to hang out in the yard.

This is quite unusual. It is most commonly Loner who gets his ass kicked, and then hides in the house for a few days as he heals. I love him, but he is usually a wuss.

Apparently he decided he'd had enough of that orange cat -- chased him all the way across the street.

Now, of course, he's hanging out in the house letting his wounds heal -- but he's certainly proud of himself!

Just one of my two handsome kitties.  

Trail Days

We spent last week backpacking about 50 miles in Tennessee/Virginia, reconnecting with our thru-hiking community, hanging out at Trail Days in Damascus, Virginia, and then doing trail maintenance at Hard Core with our favorite hostel guy, Bob Peeples. It was a week full of memorable times, big hugs, and renewed awareness.
We got a room at a B&B in Damascus -- thanks, Bob and Dianne. That was a first for us, as usually we're camping out at the campground ("ghetto") outside of town, which invariably becomes a mud-filled poison-ivy ridden swamp, or we stay at a hotel in Abingdon. Having a room in town meant that we could walk back and forth among the vendors (I bought a new pack!), out to the campground, drink a lot of beer, and then walk home for a good night's sleep in a bed!

There were only a few folks from 2001 there -- Sheriff, Lucky, Phoenix, Rain Queen, Jim Beam, Ropeyarn, Tent-n Kent and Toccoa. But tons of hikers from 2003 were there (Footslogger's year), so we hung with Jersey, Rumbler, Hiker Biker Babe, T-Bird, and lots more.

As for awareness, hiking 50 miles helped me remember how hard and how wonderful hiking on the AT is. We only did about 10 miles a day, and that first day was a killer, but HOW GREAT it was to be back. To introduce ourselves (to a few people) and have them say "Oh, Bad Ass Turtle, I've heard of you!"

When can I do that again?

Mostly, I'm general

Here's a quiz I took this morning:

Your Linguistic Profile:

60% General American English

30% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I think I knew how it would turn out as soon as the question, "What do you call a carbonated beverage?" came across. It's COKE, of course!

Not a Wok

I've never cooked anything in a wok before, though I've certainly cooked Chinese food, or perhaps what passes for Chinese food in my part of the world, growing up. Today we purchased an actual wok and I spent a good deal of time seasoning it. Heating it, rubbing oil on its surface, etc. Could make a connection to sex here, but I'm going to bypass the opportunity . . .

So Mark says the stirfry was good, but I was not satisfied. I'll have to look into Chinese cooking if I want to get better at it.

I'll just add that to the list of things I would like to get better at -- Chinese cooking can join with speaking German, playing the piano, riding a horse, quilting, and writing this blog in terms of things I should probably spend more time doing in order to get better at, but probably won't.

Why won't I, you might ask? Because in addition to the work of teaching courses and supervising student teachers (I love that work, don't get me wrong!) I need to get to work on the 6 or so writing projects that I have going but haven't finished. So, the newest one, a survey of K-12 teachers on their use of comprehension strategies, can join the rest -- the multigenre writing manuscript, research on the writing project in Lander, the article on working with mentor teachers to develop materials for mentoring student teachers, the thirdspace article, multimodality article, the conference presentation on policy and politics in teacher education, etc. in the list of things I would like to get done but can't seem to get to.

If I don't find a way of coping with all of these things, they're going to turn out like tonight's dinner. OK to some; not satisfactory to me.

Once again, in the bathroom . . .

Most of this morning was spent preparing the bathroom for another round of plastering and sanding, which involved spreading plastic and clearing EVERYTHING moveable out of there. Once that was done we spent about an hour sanding and putting new coats of plaster on -- then about 2 hours cleaning up the mess we had made and getting the bathroom into useable shape again.

Which is important, as we're having company for dinner.

All that plastering and sanding, though, should make me philosophical about something. Not sure what. My life, I guess, but I prefer not to think about it.

Instead, I'm planning what to cook for dinner and enjoying that. As well as the thought of next week being finals week, and the week after -- let's just say, I won't be in the office!

Why a Bad Ass?

It occurs to me that some readers may not understand the title of this Blog: "Adventures of a Bad Ass." To avoid the impression that I actually believe I am a bad ass, I will tell the story of my trail name.

In 2001, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and collected data for my dissertation at the same time (and yes, I've only got one damn article published from it!). I had taken the trail name "Turtle" as a symbol of my desire to be persistent, to be connected to the earth, etc. Then, after about two months of hiking (400 some odd miles), I injured my piriformis -- a big muscle in my rear -- and had to leave the trail for a month and a half of physical therapy. Yes, on my rump. What made it so bad was that the piriformis muscle, because it was injured, banged away on my sciatic nerve, making it impossible for me to sit, stand, lie down, or simply BE without pain.

Just before my completely self-sacrificing, wonderful, and ever-lovin' spouse showed up in Damascus, Virginia, to collect my sad self and take me to a hospital where I could get good drugs and some rest, a couple of hiking friends (Chris and Triple Slim) stopped by the drug store, bought a little stuffed donkey, and brought it to me in a paper bag. They said, "Your trail name used to be Turtle. Now it's (drum roll, please) Bad Ass Turtle."

That donkey is now sitting on my desk, as a reminder for me to be who I truly am. Not just a bad ass, but Bad Ass Turtle.

Wings

One day
I will sprout wings.
Small bumps will jump from my shoulder blade,
Itchy feathers one by one sweep my arms,
Bits of down float through the air.
Will my view
-- from above --
Affect my sight?

I'm feeling a bit down this morning, due to our inability to find any affordable housing to buy. I have to remind myself that it has been a long time since I owned a house, and there is nothing that says I HAVE to buy one this summer. Renting is ok, too. I should know -- I've been doing it for the LAST SEVEN YEARS! It's just that I had my heart set on finding a house or a townhouse or a condo or SOMETHING to buy, and instead I'm finding lots of land speculators who buy up houses for cash. The market here is INSANE! Who would think that you would have to bid OVER the asking price of a cheap little house in a funky college town like this one? If you ask me, the city council needs to get up off its' collective ass and DO SOMETHING about the situation here, so that people who make a decent living can afford to buy a simple house.
Whew. Rant over.

While cleaning out the cat box this morning, I started thinking about Lil' Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks. I mean, why is he called "Warbucks"? I'm sure someone out there knows. I'm guessing it is to show that he made his money in wartime. Perhaps he was a gun runner, a mercenary? Or just had a factory that made cannons? But if so, why is he pictured as such a sweet guy in the end? Shouldn't he be this horrible evil man who lurks around in corners, twirling his moustache and casting lecherous glances at innocent young women? Instead, he adopts Annie, who turns him into a big ol' softy.
Then I started wondering what would happen when she got to be Teen Orphan Annie . . . she turns a bit rebellious, she starts picketing his ouzi factory, she runs away from home (after a big shouting scene in which she calls him a despot and throws a priceless vase into the garden) to . . . San Francisco. There she takes up with a young man who lives in the park and makes money by playing a guitar and a harmonica. That'll serve him, she thinks! Now I'm poor again!
This move from liberal to conservative to liberal again makes me wonder -- as a teenager I was extremely conservative, with lots of Republican views on money, society, gender, race, etc. Now the older I get, the more liberal I become. Isn't that a bit backward?

This morning I woke up early (due to a phone call from my hiking husband 8-) and then decided to watch the rest of the movie I started last night in bed, drinking coffee. Felt all cozy and comfy with my cup of hazelnut coffee and the quilts pulled up around me, watching an action flick. With Antonio Banderas, no less. Then some friends and I went for a walk out in the mountains. One of the things I love about living on the high plains is our proximity to beautiful mountain spaces. It was a treat to get out, walk around, watch the aspens turning color, and soak up some nature for a change. Only too soon it was time to head for home. Tonight I'm going to a volleyball game (UW vs. UNLV, I think) and then coming home for a good night's sleep before heading into the office tomorrow (yes, I know it's sunday tomorrow) to get some writing done there. I've begun to realize that my putting off writing this article from my dissertation is because I KNOW it will be badly received, at least by some. Makes me want to turn my hand to something that's a sure thing, but the only thing that might be would have something to do with NCLB, standards, assessments, etc. Nobody wants to hear now about cultural and social literacies, multiliteracies, approaching literature with a critical eye, etc. And I'm not interested in working on much else. Perhaps the writing project work I am going to be doing soon will be a nice middle-of-the-road type of research project. At least I should be able to get something published on it!

Well, it's Sunday, and I managed to spend the whole day crocheting a doily and watching television. However, when I begin to get down on myself for this, I simply remind myself how hard I work during the week. There's a lot of stress there, right? So I deserve some down time, right? And it's not as if anyone is going hungry in my house or the bills aren't getting paid. So back off, conscience!
In the meantime, I managed to also get up to date on Footslogger's web page (see www.trailjournals.com/footslogger) and to update his pictures there. Only three weeks until he gets home -- and about damn time, too.

This morning I purchased my new pack. Yahoo! I got an Arcteryx bora 60 LT, a lighter weight and smaller version of the pack I carried in 2001, the Arcteryx bora 80. After I got finished culling out the stuff I didn't need in 2001 (I started with about 53 pounds of weight and ended up carrying 35 to 40) I was hardly using the space in that big pack. I sent the top home, and I had to cinch the thing down like crazy. Anyway, I found a really good deal on the pack I wanted at a website called Mickie's Place. They didn't charge me any tax or any delivery cost, plus they had the pack on sale for much cheaper than anywhere else I could find it. I'll be using that pack when I head out to the trail in May to hike from Damascus to Waynesboro. I'm both excited and nervous about that trip, although the excitement far outweighs the nervousness. This is a very different type of experience than that I had in 2001, when I spent the last two months before my thru-hike began asking myself, "Can I really do this? What am I doing? Should I just quit? What if I break my leg?" and other silly questions.

Woke up this morning to snow on the ground. A few hours ago there was blue sky everywhere, and I thought it would be perfect for skiing. But now it's starting to cloud over -- more snow again, I guess. We still might go up to Snowy and ski for a bit -- assuming I get to feeling better. Mark thinks I'm not drinking enough water, and he's right. So I have my thru-hiking Nalgene on top of the counter next to me, complete with encircling bands of duct tape (just in case) and it's full of water. My goal is to drink the whole thing within the next hour. Should be able to do that without sloshing too much.
I'm also thinking of doing some writing this morning on my multigenre piece on multigenre -- so far, I've done a list of genres, two lesson plans, an evaluation, and I have plans for a dialogue. So on that dialogue, who should be talking? Myself and Tom Romano? Tom Romano and . . . my science head? Or within myself, it could be my science head and my art head -- I've had LOTS of conversations like that -- especially while writing my diss.
Also started playing around with Nudist (qualitative analysis software, not a porn site!) last night.It's not exactly self-evident as far as how to use it, but the more I mess around with it, the more I understand it. I would like to get enough of a sense of it to do some more analysis of that old tutoring study this summer; and I would also like to be able to use it in conjunction with my class sometime this semester. Hard to teach something when you don't have a clue what it's all about!

I've been sick for almost three weeks with croup. CROUP! I ask you, isn't that a child's disease? I'm not a child, I don't have any children, and I'm almost never around children. Apparently, however, the virus that causes croup is sneaky as hell. It first hit me with a sore throat, then laryngitis for a few days (during those few days, of course, I taught an in-service on content area reading and a graduate class on qualitative research -- it's quite interesting to teach with no voice!). After the laryngitis came the coughing, the swollen throat, the fever, the difficulty breathing. Not at all nice. I am now on the mend, however, having taken loads of steroids and antibiotics. I'm still on an inhaler, but every day I feel stronger and more healthy.
Today, in fact, I plan to go have lunch with my husband and several of my fall semester students, who are now student teaching. Mexican food. Margaritas. A whole host of salty foods. Love it!