Z is for Zelda

If you thought Z was going to represent anything other than my kitty, you were fooling yourself. Dr. BB and I often joke about the internet content as mostly porn and pictures of adorable kitties and I guess I don't really see a problem with that. As long as everyone agrees that my kitty is the cutest of them all.

She likes to be in box-like things.  Her absolute favorite place in the world is her kennel, which we leave out for her all the time. It's where she takes naps and hides from humans. It is understood that we will leave her alone when she is in her den.  But she'll also happily play with any laundry basket you leave about or a cardboard box.

My Z-cat also loves to stretch out and show her fuzzy belly off.  I read (on the internets, of course) that overweight cats sleep like this, as do cats who trust their owners A LOT.  She's not overweight, so I'm taking it to mean that she doesn't think we will ever eat her belly. Little does she know.

Zelda, who will respond to the names Zelly Bean, Zelly Beaner, Zelda Belda, Fuzzy Face, Furry Feet, and Crazy, will also cuddle with you, curl up into the most adorable ball to sleep, and allow you to film her looking grumpily into the camera.  She's a true delight.

Actually,the last time I wrote about my cat and what a brat she was, Abby reassured me that until her cat was two, he was a brat.  I'm sad that we have almost another year to go of brattiness, but I have hope that someday she will stop biting, tearing up the carpeting, and yo-yo-yowling at night.  Or she won't and we'll keep her anyway because how could you resist that scrumptious grumpy face?!

Y is for Yellow

I find myself obsessed with signs that are the color yellow. If I ever designed a logo, I am pretty sure yellow would be a major color in my design.

I read a study somewhere once that made mention of the fact that yellow is an angry color and if you paint a room in your house yellow, you'll feel angry and tense in that room.  But how is that possible?  Yellow is so cheerful and happy. 

X is for X-Axis

The question was: Which best represents the graph of y = (x-1)(x+4)?

I spend way too much of my time doing stuff like this.  I write and rewrite questions and then send them off with poorly drawn graphs and hope someone with actual ability with computerized graphics can make it look like it should. I send these types of jpgs at least a couple of times a week and every time I do it, I think how much easier it would be to have a fucking scanner. So, I make my (poor attempt at a) drawing, take a picture of it with our digital camera, email it to myself, open it up in Picasa, do whatever I have to do to make it legible, save it to my computer, and then I put it in an email to whoever needs the email.  And then I laugh to myself and say it's better than faxing.  Which is true, but I live in 2012!!  Okay, I'm over it.

Plus, as part of the technology deal at his new school, my husband is getting a scanner.  Thank whatever deity you wish to thank!!

EDITED TO ADD:  Because Elizabeth wanted the answer, here it goes.

So if you have y = (x-1)(x+4), the zeroes, where the graph crosses the x-axis, are located where the y-value is zero.  Any point on the x-axis will be in the form of (x, 0).  So all you need to do is set the equation equal to zero, which is to say, make y = 0.

0 = (x-1)(x+4)

You may remember from third grade the zero product property (ha ha - maybe not).  If you have ab = 0, either a must be 0 or b must be zero because if the product is 0, one of the terms must be zero. If we apply that rule to our equation, then either

x - 1 = 0   OR     x + 4 = 0

Now we solve those with our rusty algebra skillz.  If x - 1 = 0, that makes x = 1. If x + 4 = 0, that makes x = -4.

So we know our graph must cross at (1, 0) and (-4, 0). We can eliminate C & D because the test makers are attempting to confuse us with the wrong signs.  Since parabolas, this type of graph, usually open up, unless it is multiplied by a negative number, we know this one must point up. For example, -1(x-1)(x+4) would be B because the -1 in front would flip the parabola over.  Cross off B. The answer is A.

W is for Wheels

Things are finally slowing down here. My schedule doesn't have me driving madly all over western Wisconsin and eastern Illinois each weekday in the next couple of weeks. I am grateful for the bit of downtime, but I'm kind of sad I won't be able to listen to audiobook after audiobook.

I sometimes wonder how safe those wooden spokes were in automobile tires. It seems like it might be the kind of thing that was better in theory than in practice.

It's been weird here. We've been trying to figure stuff out, but stuff doesn't want to get figured out. It's like all the grown up decisions have to be decided AT ONE TIME and it's completely stressing me out. But I guess I'll get over that once we make those decisions and I will go on my life as it was before.

V is for Variety (and a dissertation on cat food)

There's a pet store in town that I love. It has dogs running all around since apparently the couple that owns the pet store has three dogs and they are fostering two more (anyone want two adorable! little! tiny! I've never heard them bark! chihuahuas in the Madison/Milwaukee area?  They need to be adopted together and they are a bit on the older side and I would take them if a) my husband wouldn't flip out and b) my cat wasn't bigger and more aggressive than both of them put together).  Anyway, there are dogs running around all over the place which will endear me to anyplace.  Yes, even your home.

They are definitely a dog-centric and bird-centric store and it's like the cats are afterthoughts, but they do have a nice selection of cat food, which is why we go there.  My cat cannot be trusted with these lovely ceramic bowls because she knocks over her water bowl 78948902384902 times a day, but I desperately want one of those green ones with the paw print in the middle.  

So, about that selection of cat food they have.  I did SO MUCH research when we took Zelda off her kitten food , Science Diet Kitten.  Science Diet was fine and she tolerated it fairly well, but we had some issues regarding unpleasantness in her hind region that I blamed on the food. So when we switched, I chose Wellness Core because it got such glowing reviews from people I trusted.  Yes, I ignored the advice of our vet.  I made sure we could get Wellness at this pet store in this town, but when we got here the pet store owner told us that he had stopped stocking it because the price kept going up.  Damn it.

The very nice pet store owner (fostering TWO chihuahuas - are you sure you don't want them?) gave us about a dozen samples of different high quality cat food to choose from and I ended up picking Natural Balance Dry Cat Food Pea and Salmon Recipe. I had not chosen Natural Balance from the beginning because of some controversy surrounding a recall of some of their products as well as a mislabeling of ingredients, but when I took the foods out of the sample bags and let her sniff, Zelda went wild for this stuff!!  And she eats so much better than she did on either the Science Diet or the Wellness that I wonder if we don't have a picky eater on our hands.

Natural Balance comes in approximately eighty gazillion flavors and we just picked salmon because Zelda liked the smell, but I'd be curious to know if anyone else has tried other flavors of Natural Balance with their cats.  Or, if you don't use Natural Balance, what do you use?  I am not steadfastly committed to Natural Balance if anyone else has a decent suggestion for something we can get locally, is relatively healthy for my Zelda, and has magical properties such as making my cat STOP KNOCKING OVER HER WATER DISH?!?!

U is for Up! Up! Up!

I found myself at the top of a parking ramp yesterday. Welcome to Madison with clear blue skies and crappy student housing.

I find the buildings charming but realize, since one of my students told me about cockroaches and ceiling tiles falling on her in her new rental house, that I am probably in the minority in that thinking.

i

I am filled with a sense of duty to write something about the Todd Akin controversy, but it seems like so many others have done it already.  I'm two days too late to be doing anything but rehash what everyone else is saying.  Maybe I'll articulate my feelings someday soon.  Or maybe I'll just relive that glorious afternoon where I was free to wander about Madison, enjoying its whimsy and joy.

T is for Tomatoes and Tomatillos

Is it weird to take pictures of fruit and vegetables in your local grocery store? I don't know.

We went to the Farmer's Market here several weeks ago. I was so excited - I'd heard so many good things about it - and it turned out there was nothing there.  The tomatoes were sad, there was no corn, and I wandered around somewhat forlornly.  I heard there's a great Farmer's Market in Madison around the capitol, so we'll have to try that sometime.

So we get our produce from the grocery store.  In the next year or two, it would be nice to join a CSA, but for now, we just go and get what we need.

S is for Self (or stream of consciousness)

One day I just started taking these pictures with my camera phone everywhere I went.  The shadow as ever present accompaniment is not a new idea, but it came to me that my shadow will always come with the sun. 

Someday soon when it is cold outside, I want to look back on these pictures and realize that there will again come a time when I can go outside in skirts and without a jacket.

Fashion trends I will  never partake in: short sleeved suits, horizontal stripes on the top half of a woman (seriously, STOP wearing striped tops, my fellow ladies - it makes you look fat even if you are not), skinny jeans, and those gladiator sandals. 

Exercises I vow someday to be able to do in the correct form: pushups, pullups, and the stupid triangle pose.

Items for the kitchen I really want: a digital scale, an ice cream attachment for our KitchenAid, and a dedicated gluten-free set of mixing bowls.

Fruits in the fruit bin right now: blueberries, plums, and nectarines.

Questions I still have: why does the cat keep biting me? where does the wind go? when will enough ever be enough?  why does that person keep putting Mitt Romney posts up on Facebook? when can I breathe again?  when will I see them again?

R is for Reality

I walk out to the driveway to see the adults clustered around the edge, preventing small feet from meandering into the street, the boys playing ball in the side yard, the oldest girl riding a bike recklessly around the drive, and one small little girl coloring with sidewalk chalk, her walker abandoned next to her. It breaks my heart to see her there all alone.  I squat down next to her, tug her hair gently, surprising her with my "what's up, Katydid?" question.

"I want to play ball," she tells me, looking over at the boys playing in the grass.

"Okay, let's get you into your walker," I say, reaching for it.

"No. No walker. Katherine do it."

But the reality is, as she knows, that she can't do.  She tried and I let her try, but eventually she had to take the walker to help her through the grass.  She asks about it all the time now.  How come she isn't like all the other kids? How come other kids don't have walkers?  How come her twin brother can do it? Why does she need help?  The how comes and the whys come fast and furiously and I don't know how to answer.

The picture above is my favorite picture right now.  I am making a tree and talking to her and she's listening to me so intently, you can almost see the gears turning.  She's a smart little girl who knows the alphabet better than her older cousin who will be starting kindergarten today, but she's also an isolated and lonely little girl who just wants to play ball like her brother.

The reality is harsh. Her life will be different from her brother's life. But it will glorious, too.  Because when we were done coloring with the chalk, we laid down on the grass and looked up at the clouds and talked about what shapes they made and how the leprechauns were dancing inside them.  And her brother didn't get to see those clouds because he was too busy playing ball.

Q is for Queer

The theme of the photos for today is:  NGS is never at home.

I just don't understand this stop sign. Who needs to be told to stop at the end of a cul de sac? Drunk teenagers?  I see signs like this in every suburban neighborhood I find myself in.  I was half tempted to drive my car around so that it was parked in the scrub behind the sign. 

I stopped to get gas and spent the whole time wondering what a chack was while the gas was pumping.

I really wanted to use the rest room non-accordingly, but I couldn't think of what that might be, except for maybe bathroom sex and I was short a partner at the time. 

It was an excellent weekend full of baseball, sun, tantrums, and black eyes.  I will tell you about it someday when I am far, far removed from it.

P is for Pink

I think it is very likely that the owner of this Kia, who spray painted their car pink and stenciled Hello Kitty cartoons all over it, would be my friend.

I always talk big about getting a Vespa and then I realize that it's completely impractical and I will never own an impractical vehicle.  But I sure do love seeing little scooters and mopeds zipping around.

I saw both of these within blocks of each other. I wandered around another few blocks desperately trying to find a pink bicycle because I feel like that would have just completed the transportation trio, but sadly, I couldn't find one.

Go pink!

O is for Obsolete (and Overscheduled)

Maybe there is still a market for payphones at rest stops along major interstates, but I don't think it's a big market. This pay phone amused me and my husband made fun of me for looking like a total rube as I wandered around it taking pictures.  "Hey, everyone, she doesn't know what a telephone is..."

We ran the gamut of emergency personnel this weekend.  We called the police because there was a  dog locked inside a minivan at the movie theater.  Poor thing was clearly distressed, it was close to 90 degrees out, and the windows were steamed.  We ended up at the emergency room when I had a strange case of vertigo.  And, of course, we watched in horrified silence as a local temple was terrorized by a gunman.

I spend so much time these days on the road, driving from one place to another that I'm getting to know all the rest areas well.  This little cooler and I are becoming best friends.  I am starting to get down on myself because there is so much I haven't done - I haven't made those phone calls, written to my grandmother, or printed those photos out - but then I remember that it will all get done sometime.  So, I'm sorry if I haven't called or written or texted.  I promise you'll hear from me soon.

The movie we watched was The Dark Knight Returns.  The whole time we watched it I couldn't help but think of how movie theaters, schools, and churches are all "soft targets" and vulnerable to attack.  Guns kill, people. Guns kill.

N is for Nearby

For months before we moved, I had nothing to do all day. I played with the cat, worked out, cooked dinner, vacuumed compulsively, and took unnecessary trips to the library and Target. Here I am busy, so busy all the time. I love it, but it means that I haven't had as much time to play with the camera as I thought I would have. During a break during a class I was teaching, I ran outside and took some shots as quickly as I could, from the doorway of the building. Madison is such a fun city - full of color and life. I like it far more than I had anticipated.

We were in Iowa celebrating my mother- and father-in-law's wedding anniversary last weekend.  My three year old nephew bet me five monies that his mom would wear yellow. When she came down wearing pink, he owed me five monies, but none of us knew what that meant, so I took my payment in the form of kisses and hugs.  Now my husband and I have taken to betting on the outcomes of Olympic events with monies.  Losers have to pay up in kisses and hugs, of course.

At some point in the last year, my navel piercing was taken out. I think I want to get it re-pierced, so I've been checking out some of the tattoo parlors/piercing parlors in Madison.  It just pleases me so much to wander in there and ask them about their APP accreditation.  I'm just a prissy looking girl wondering if you sanitize properly.

One of our friends lives in Madison and he said before me moved here that it was a great city if you could ignore all the Badgers.  I think he's right. I'll proudly wear my Golden Gophers sweatshirt and get ridiculed, but enjoy the bike lanes and the easily accessible co-ops.

M is for Metal

There's a lot of public art in a town where I've been working recently, including these awesome metal sculptures that are just hanging out on the public library campus.

I feel like presenting this metal blob as an example of rust and erosion in a high school science lesson.

A proliferation of x's must have inspired the artist who created the following sculpture.  I am not sure what exactly it's supposed to represent, but I told myself that it's all about x marking the spot where you can find all the knowledge.  Maybe I'm taking the whole library thing too far.

Did you happen to notice how gross not green the grass looks? It looks better in Illinois than it does in east central Wisconsin, but it's so dry everywhere in the Midwest, I'd be surprised if the grass ever recovers. Also, when food prices spike at the end of the summer, you heard it here first.  The crops are in sad shape.

I spent a lot of time wandering around this hunk of metal, taking pictures, and wondering if the artist who created knew it would end up in on the lawn of a library, how much time he or she spent working on it, and if I would get lockjaw if I touched it.

I don't see a lot of public art in our new town, but seeing these made me want to wander around town and find something, anything. 

K is for Kicks (Shoes, Closets, and I Learned How to Make an Arrow with Picasa)

So these are my shoes!  I also have three pairs of tall boots and winter boots, but they are stored elsewhere.  While I realize this may not be super exciting, I want to tell you about the greatest shoes that ever shoed.

See these shoes I have cleverly pointed to with a red arrow?  These are Mephisto Helen sandals.  They have, no exaggeration meant here, changed my life.  In addition to my healing left leg issues of swelling and occasional soreness, I have kind of flat feet and a penchant towards plantar fashiitis.  For years, I have just accepted foot and lower leg pain as part of my regular life.  My husband feels vaguely nauseated all the time and my feet hurt.  That's life, right?

Well, no. I finally broke down and bought these sandals. It hurt my soul a little because they are much more than I would regularly spend on not all that cute shoes, but I was in so much pain. They are wonderful. I don't come home from class and immediately put my foot up for as long as I was on my feet. My foot can swell and it accommodates the swelling without having to be adjusted. I am in love with these shoes.  All my other shoes are sad now because I don't wear them very often.

I didn't want my boots to be left out so here is where they are.  They are in our closet on the top rack in their boxes. They probably won't get much use until it's a bit cooler.

Are you jealous of our closets yet?  We decided to spend an extra $10 a month to get TWO walk-ins instead of just one. I love how I can find everything.  Especially my shoes.

J is for Joy

I took this picture on my way home* from work last night.  It makes me so, so happy on so many fronts.

We moved here just over a week ago. I called up the local office for an organization I used to work for in the Twin Cities on the off chance they might need me to do some work for them.  They called me back almost immediately with a class! and other one off events! that means I have paying work that I'm hoping will turn into consistent paying work. I have a bunch of resumes out and I'm hopeful that I'm going to get something full-time soon, but I'm so excited to be bringing income back into our household, I can hardly contain my excitement.

Also, the drive takes me through rural areas (the smell of manure! the ever present danger of hitting a deer while driving sixty miles per hour!) and a couple of small towns (Piggly Wiggly! places to get gasoline!) until it suddenly becomes a very major metropolitan area.  Crazy!  The rural areas like above especially please me because I am, at this point in my commute, no more than twenty minutes from the capital of Wisconsin. I met not another car on this road. Awesome.  And there were lightning bugs.**

*I did, of course, pull over to the side of the road. I didn't take this while driving. 

**Until about two months ago, I thought lightning bugs had gone extinct because I don't think I've seen them since I was a small child.  To my excitement, they are quite common around here.  I think I'm in love.

I is for Illinois

Driving through Illinois on Monday afternoon, I had to come to a complete stop on I-80 for some construction.  I snapped this shot because it just seemed so Americana with the highway, the corn field, the red barn, and the blue sky. The Midwest is America's breadbasket and I live here and I take it for granted sometimes that there are just fields and fields of corn, soybeans, potatoes, and wheat in the same way southerners might take for granted fields of cotton or Floridians look past citrus groves without really seeing them.

For anyone who has made the I-80 journey across Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa, you know what I'm talking about.  The vistas never change and it's just flat field after flat field.  But there's a beauty in those fields.

H is for Home (or Hub)

I was back home in Michigan over the weekend. My mom, sister, and I attended a big country music festival. I enjoyed putting on my redneck side, wearing a cowboy hat, and singing along with awesome artists. No one really cares, but Lee Brice and Thomas Rhett really impressed me and I want Chris Cagle to be my new best friend.

Anyway, one of the sponsors of the festival was a car dealership and I made my mother and sister stand with me while I took a picture of us in the hubcap of an awesome VW van. Good times.

The rest are just some pictures I took of Grand Rapids while we were driving by on Sunday night. It's not really home, of course, but it's the first city I ever loved. 

It had been almost a year since I had been back.  I had forgotten about the sheer number of trees, the beautiful sunsets, and what it felt like to be around people who also root for the Detroit Lions and think they can win it all this year.  I had forgotten what it was like to harass my sister until she just gives into my silliness and how my mom can ignore our antics no matter how loud and boisterous we get.  I had forgotten how it feels to be around friends who've known me since second grade, whose grown ass teenaged children embrace me and make me feel like the coolest adult in the room, and how it feels to stand on the deck in your nightgown and bare feet and listen to the corn rustle in the wind.

Yes, home is with my husband and my cat, but Home is where the corn grows and the sky is bluer than any photograph can capture.

G is for Gym

Why so many pictures of the gym, you ask? Because I spend oh so much time there.  It's a gorgeous facility, three stories of pure hell.  The first floor is mostly a weight room and I don't hang out there much, although occasionally I do my squats and lunges with the power lifters and trainers.  The second floor has a cardio room and a gymnasium and the third floor has a track, a few exercise bikes, and really strange weight machines that I've only ever seen three people use (see upper right hand corner).

It's been pretty delightful the last month or so because most of the college students are gone so it has been just me and a couple of diehards.  I originally wrote "a couple of other diehards" and then I realized that I didn't want you to think I actually was a diehard.  I am not.  I am, however, incredibly serious about rehabbing my injury.

So about that injury. It is almost seven months since my surgery.  I still limp most of the time, but I can do a lot.  I walk for at least three miles every day and most days it's more like five or six (yes, I keep track on a pedometer).  I work out at least three times a week doing a variety of punishing activities at the gym, including the exercise bike, the treadmill, and the elliptical, along with some light weightlifting focusing mostly for my lower half.  I stretch, stretch some more, get up and walk around, and stretch some more.  On my non-gym days, I try to do something, although that usually is just me goofing off with the Wii Fit Plus and attempting yoga poses I can no longer do, especially the dreaded Gate Pose and the stupid fucking I hate you Triangle Pose.

We got this gym membership long before my injury but I never used it until afterwards. I give it full credit for the progress I have made.  But I still really hate the Triangle Pose.

F is for Fear(less?)

While we were in Chicago last week, my sister's boyfriend wanted to go to the former Sears Tower, now called Willis Tower which sounds kind of dirty if you ask me, and stand on the 2 inches (inches!) of plexiglass scariness you see above.  I found the whole thing terrifying. I paid good money to be terrified out of my mind.  My sister refused to even ride the elevator up.  I think she was the smarter of the two of us.

Okay, so I didn't take this picture - my husband did.  The point is that if you are ever in Chicago doing touristy things this is freaking terrifying, so be forewarned!

Bonus points for noticing the awesome linen pants I bought the last time I was in Chicago. They've turned out more coral than orange with a couple of washings, but they are awesomeness in the form of clothing.  Also, I have green polish on my toes because that's how I roll.