#scribblinaway

when you live in interesting times long enough they just become normal times i guess…

Yeah. I don’t like to refer to this as “the new normal”, because almost nothing about our life these days is or should be normal in a permanent way. But I guess we’ve settled down into sort of a routine that will get us through the potentially long time of the pandemic. However, I do hope that we can work to fix the other ills.  

Because that’s the other thing. I feel like there are a lot of more urgent things going on than my individual experience of sheltering in place. I have not been blogging much about racial equity/justice issues partly because on this platform, my most important contribution would be to listen to/amplify black voices, and partly because I don’t want to respond in a fundamentally performative way to what is truly a crisis. Instead, I’m trying to write frequently to my government representatives at all levels about it, which (particularly at the local level) feels like it could have some impact.

this is actually okay news according to friends involved in the process last time. Any arbitrator the province appoints is likely to get the profs a better deal than the administration were prepared to offer on their own.

I hope so.

scribblinaway replied to your post “Day 27 of COVID-19 shelter-in-place”

Yesterday my dad pointed out that even if they start slowly easing restrictions, as a person in a high risk category he's essentially going to have to continue to be in self-isolation until a vaccine is widely available. :(

Yeah, this is the concern, and is also why I’m not sure what “easing the restrictions” will look like in the pre-vaccine period. For example, how long until we can have dance classes again? How long until live performances are permitted? How long until we can travel?

echojar replied to your photoset “Day 13 of COVID-19 shelter-in-place Today also didn’t exactly go...”

it's possibe that the hovery flapping bird was a kite? it sounds like kite behavior. and I've seen white tailed kites in central CA before

Yes, it probably was a kite--that’s definitely kite behavior. I just didn’t feel like I’d had a good enough look at the bird itself to be sure.

julandran replied to your photoset “Ridiculous afternoon snack at Chez Anonsally You can make something...”

One of my go-to snacks has been melting equal parts peanut butter and chocolate chips in a small ramekin, then dipping digestive biscuits in the resulting goo. :)

Replies are in reverse chronological order... Also, sorry for not replying to these sooner, but the trip was very busy and hectic!

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Day 15 in New Zealand: Taieri Gorge Scenic Railway”

Fly well and safely tomorrow!

Thanks!! We flew safely, though catching our connection in Auckland was a really close call due to the delay in our Dunedin-Auckland flight. But the important thing is, we made it home safely, as did all of our luggage.

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Day 14 in New Zealand: Orokonui Ecosanctuary”

Bingo! It sounds like you've had a wonderful trip.

It really was a fabulous trip! Thanks for following along!

lies replied to your post “Day 13 in New Zealand: Otago Peninsula”

Highly r. to my i.! And that’s fascinating about the F/F albatross pair and the same-sex penguin pairs.

Isn’t it?! And you get these anti-marriage-equality jerks saying same-sex marriage is “unnatural”, yet we see it in nature all the time. And albatrosses are monogamous and usually stay with the same mate until one of them dies. 

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Day 11 in New Zealand: Christchurch and little blue penguins in...”

Penguins! Also, I really liked the Cardboard Cathedral when I was there in December, and respect the way they really lean into it with the merchandise. I was a ring-in on a Catholic music tour, and most of the other tour participants were much less impressed with the "temporary" building.

Penguins! I love them! 

I am not Catholic (at all), but I was interested to see the Cardboard Cathedral because of having seen the ruined cathedral and ... just conceptually. I thought it worked pretty well. It felt light and ... well, it felt like a real church. 

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Day 13 in New Zealand: Otago Peninsula”

Albatross!

Albatross! :D I had forgotten all about that sketch.

lies replied to your post “Day 12 in New Zealand: Whitestone Cheese factory, Moeraki Boulders,...”

Also agree that your competent-to-incompetent ratio is impressively high for the day. Another accomplishment: providing ongoing much-appreciated bird-related coverage for the benefit of foolish followers on the other side of the world.

Always happy to provide bird-related content for you, @lies!

scribblinaway replied to your post “Day 12 in New Zealand: Whitestone Cheese factory, Moeraki Boulders,...”

I think driving on the left side of the road is a huge accomplishment!

Thanks! I am proud of myself for this, actually. It is really, really hard to orient oneself to the middle of the road when sitting on the other side of the car.

flutish replied to your post “Day 11 in New Zealand: Christchurch and little blue penguins in...”

You're just going from awesome to awesome! I actually didn't end up stopping in Oamaru at all (drove straight through it!), but I saw little blue penguins outside of Melbourne, which was also pretty cool. Are you going to Dunedin/Otago Peninsula and the yellow-eyed penguins there?

The whole trip was awesome! The itinerary was largely planned with penguins in mind. As you presumably know by now, we did indeed go to Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula to see the yellow-eyed penguins! And it’s so sad how threatened they are. But hopefully something can be done. The local population seems pretty committed to trying to protect them.

amarguerite replied to your post “Day 11 in New Zealand: Christchurch and little blue penguins in...”

Omg that sounds like the most adorable thing

They (the little blue penguins) were so, so cute. 

amarguerite replied to your post “Day 10 in New Zealand: swimming with dolphins!”

That sounds incredible!!!

That was a pretty amazing experience even for me on the boat, and was presumably even more intense for the people who swam with the dolphins. 

flutish replied to your post “Day 10 in New Zealand: swimming with dolphins!”

The swimming really is magical (like honestly, top things I've ever done in my life), but it seems like you got to see a lot of other stuff (mating?!) that the swimmers probably couldn't and honestly, they're just so INVOLVED that just being out there is so fun. <3

Well, once the swimmers were back on board the boat did stay out for a while longer so everyone could get photos and watch the dolphins some more. But I couldn’t possibly have swum; I’m not confident enough in the water or with a snorkel, and that is even aside from the issue of the water being so cold (even in a wetsuit).

lies replied to your post “Day 7 in New Zealand: Marlborough Sounds”

This sounds like an amazing day.

Oh, yes, that day on the boat and islands was terrific. 

flutish replied to your post “Day 6 in New Zealand: ferry to Picton!”

Dolphins!!!

Dolphins! I think those (the ones I briefly saw from the ferry) might’ve been a different kind than the ones we saw later in the trip, but I didn’t get a good enough look to know for sure.

flutish replied to your post “Day 5 in New Zealand: Wellington/conference”

Yay yay all of this sounds lovely and I can't wait to hear about your South Island adventures! <3

They were great!

llamapunk replied to your post “At airport!”

I hope there will be a Sock Review at some point!

So, I brought wool and cotton socks for most of the days, and that turned out to be a good thing, because for a while it was warmer than I was expecting and wool would’ve been too warm, but by the end it was definitely too cold for cotton. So it was good I had both options. 8 pairs did not get worn.

flutish replied to your post “flutish replied to your post “Day 2 in New Zealand: Wellington” ...”

I'm glad you're there too and hope you have a fun rest-of-conference! <3

The conference was good, especially once I had given my talk! Most of the people are not analysing their data in ways I necessarily find interesting or convincing, but the questions they’re asking are compelling. So I was glad I went, though I probably could have made more of an effort at networking. 

camillavirgil replied to your post “Day 2 in New Zealand: Wellington”

Hooray!!!

I started writing a post about definitions of "opera" and different terms for Musiktheater. It got very long with less than half of the points I wanted to cover. If you actually want to read it, I can finish it and post it (the short version is genre is always complicated). Otherwise, I wanted to say: I have difficulty imagining a high school production of Gypsy.

Well, I’m certainly interested, but I can understand if you don’t want to take the time to write it! 

You have a point about Gypsy. Obviously she didn’t get naked, but ... well, I went to high school in Berkeley, and our public high school was probably the most liberal in the nation. So that may be why we could do it. 

scribblinaway replied to your post “destinationtoast replied to your post: Hamilton ...”

I think it's that opera is a musical genre as well as a theatrical genre? E.g. operettas were like operas but with some dialogue and comedic rather than dramatic/tragic themes.

Yes, that’s a good basic explanation of the difference between operettas and operas. What I was trying to understand was the difference between operas and sung-through musicals, or operettas and musicals that aren’t sung-through, particularly since there are “rock operas”, as @julandran says:

julandran replied to your post “destinationtoast replied to your post: Hamilton ...”

I know "Tommy" is generally referred to as a rock opera. (And back in the 90s there was an adaptation of Carmen that they marketed as a "hip-hopera", which I guess could also apply to "Hamilton".) I hadn't heard of "sung-through" musicals either, but I suppose it conveys the format well enough.

I know the feeling... we need more 3-day weekends... you really need 1 day to recover from the workweek, 1 to do social and fun stuff, and 1 to clean your house.

YES. That’s exactly right. I’m always trying to squeeze those three days’ worth of stuff into two days. It never quite works. 

julandran replied to your post “Hamilton”

Yay! I'm so happy for you and hope you enjoy the cast recording on its own, as well. (I'm going to see it in NYC this weekend for my birthday, so I'll probably be gushing soon, too.) ^_^

Yay! Enjoy it! (and go in better prepared than I did!)

camillavirgil replied to your post “Hamilton”

So glad you enjoyed it!!! :)

Centaur!

It was quite a surprise!

normallyparenthetical replied to your post “Days 14-15 of German vacation: family-in-law, Neuss, and Düsseldorf”

The Saraceno sounds scary, but also amazing. Also, Happy Birthday to W!

Wife says thanks! She had a nice day. And yes, that installation was fantastic--I wish I’d had a little tiny bit more courage to explore it more, but it was so fun to watch Wife wandering around it like she owned the place. :)

lies replied to your post “Day 16 of German vacation: Düsseldorf on my own”

Oh wow.

Yes! I was excited to see those Friedrich paintings. There would’ve been more in Berlin at the Alte Nationalgalerie, but that museum was closed when we were there due to a broken air conditioning system.

scribblinaway replied to your post “Day 13 of German vacation: Rhine bike tour”

WOW """1.5 hours"""

Yeah... I mean, I knew that was a vast underestimation, and of course we took a lot of breaks, but still. And even if I had been capable of cycling 30km without a break, I’m sure I couldn’t have done it in such a short time.

flutish replied to your photoset “Photos from Day 2 (part 1) of German Vacation: Berlin Top row: looking...”

Love that second photo!

scribblinaway replied to your post: It has been A Day.

oh that sucks :( my workplace has a similar setup re half walls but nothing on the back/side. some of my coworkers put miniature succulents there. honestly our biggest issue is noise! but we are in one of those massive 1960s concrete brutalist type buildings so there’s nothing sound=dampening anywhere

Oh, yeah, we’re definitely not quite that bad off--the floor is carpeted, and the low half-walls we have are mostly made of soft stuff so it does dampen the sound somewhat. But not enough, and I am along the “corridor” so there are people walking by all the time, which is distracting. I want to bring in some plants because I think that I will help make the desk feel homier as well as possibly block some of the visual distractions. 

However, it does sort of sound like they might be planning to put the side partitions in after all? They claim it was a contractor error. I don’t know what the time frame is on fixing it, though--it’s possible they are just saying that to appease us but don’t actually have the time/money to fix it. 

Today’s major development for me was that we discovered that we can control the thermostat in our area! Unfortunately, the interface is not self-explanatory. Does the up arrow mean “make the temperature go up” or “crank up the AC”? Nobody knows. We were freezing all day...

The major development for the building, the top two floors of which are still under construction, was that an upstairs water pipe broke and there was water pouring down one of the elevator shafts! I hope they can fix that quickly and that it doesn’t mean our department is cursed and doomed to work only in buildings with leaks and mold problems.