I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

I just attended my first very serious faculty union meeting, and someone actually said that. I was privileged enough to be part of an overwhelming vote to "authorize the negotiating team to call a strike if necessary." So, we're not on strike (yet), but we may well be as of next Sunday night. It's excruciating, as an individual taught to think logically and use reason, to endure the irrational, political mind-game that is the negotiating process. I'd much rather be thinking about and teaching mathematics than feeling disrespected (even though that's not a verb) by the administration.

Meanwhile, our 8-year-old Mazda 626 is having serious transmission issues, so we get to try and prepare for a new school year this week with one functioning vehicle and jobs that are both 35 minutes from home in opposite directions. It's not the best of my life right now.

It's hard for me to keep everything in perspective sometimes, because ultimately these are temporary problems that will be overcome, but I still hateithatehateit while it's going on. Ugh.

Lexington, Cincinnati, and Columbus

We're back from vacation number two! All three stops were scrumtrelescent:

Lexington: a great time with Dan and Rebecca, complete with lots of Kentuckyish stuff - a banjo played in church, a visit to a horse park (with equines of all types), country-fried steak, Kentucky bourbon barrel aged ale, and a street named Versailles that is pronounced Ver-sales. Oh, and chocolate angel strata for Dan's birthday.

Cincinnati: an especially good place for Annika and Abby, since we stayed with friends that have two girls the same ages as ours. Highlights: Coney Island (the largest pool I've ever seen and Annika's first trip down a water slide), the Cincinnati Zoo, a nearly shaved long-haired cat, and overall fine company.

Columbus: another good family time, along with North Market (featuring ice cream, salsa, and tabouli), swimming at Lifetime Fitness, playing at the park, drinking scotch ales, and seeing the mighty Ohio State Fair (featuring Annika's first solo roller coaster ride, the world's largest boot, a cow made of butter, a log-rolling dog, and general fair mania). Back at Nick and Beth's, Annika had lots of fun doing sit-down-stay tricks with Maeby.

We owe thanks to all those that we stayed with, and special thanks for putting up with the chaos generated by a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old.

All of a sudden the new school year is looming large. I'm hoping that the faculty at Ferris have a contract in two weeks so we can start the year with classes instead of a strike.

Hawai'i

We are back from Hawai'i, where we had a great time. It was fabulous just to spend time with each other, but to do so in Hawai'i was even better. We saw volcanic craters, coral reefs, pods of pilot whales, enormous canyons, sea turtles, lava tubes, huge banyan trees, and the spot where Indiana Jones swung on a vine into a river while escaping the Hovitos.

Rainbow falls in Hilo, on the big island.

A volcanic crater within a crater also on the big island. Hot and desolate up there.

We went to a luau on Maui and were treated to this rainbow.

The Na Pali coast, on Kauai.

Of course, pictures do no justice to the scenery there. I ate lots of seafood: lobster, crab, shrimp, grouper, swordfish, mahi mahi, and generic fried fish, and I even managed to try mussels, which were alright. I couldn't bring myself to try the oysters - you can see the different organs too clearly.

Once we got home I slayed (slew?) a vile demon that was consuming my soul - I repaired the PVC pipes laying underground in the drainfield of our septic system that were punctured or snapped when our neighbor kindly plowed our garden plot with a tractor. We weren't aware of what was lying beneath when we took him up on his generous offer, until weeks later there were puddles of sewage in the garden. Yuck. As far as I know, though, everything's fixed and working correctly. And we're moving our garden next year.

We're looking forward to Lexington-Cincinnati-Columbus next week. And once we get back, there are only two weeks until school starts!

Nothing like a weird coincidence

Anyone familiar with the show Scrubs knows that Dr. Cox nearly always calls J.D. by a girl's name and never uses the same one twice. While watching an episode from our Season 3 DVD the other night, Dr. Cox actually called J.D. "Annika" (although he pronounced it Anne-ica, not On-ica, in an Annika Sorenstam reference). But, amazingly enough, the next name he used, a few minutes later, was Abby. Weird. The name he used after Abby was Judy, but I don't really see us using that one if and when we have a third daughter.

I just checked, while writing this: the aforementioned episode actually aired before Abby was born, so maybe it was subliminal message to us to use Abby for daughter number 2.

Hawaii in 12 days!

A good summer nothing day

My summer teaching is done, finishing the day before gas hit $3.09, so I'm glad I'm not driving up to Big Rapids anymore. It was a fun six weeks. I enjoyed teaching calculus again.

Here's the kind of summer day I had, and it made me happy: slept until 8:30 and then helped Lisa get the girls ready for a play date at Long Lake near our house. While they were gone I picked up and vacuumed the basement, cleaned up the "cat room" (the basement bathroom where they have a litter box and where they eat, which sounds like a gross combo, but it's the biggest bathroom in the house), all whilst listening to U2 and R.E.M., loudly. When that was done I had leftovers for lunch, prepared the yard for mowing, randomly picked weeds out of the landscaping as I went around the house, mowed a little (with my new ear-protectors), and then helped get the girls into bed for naps after they came home. Then I put Miracle-Gro on some flowers, folded some laundry, took a short nap with Tate, read the newspaper, finished mowing after the girls woke-up, and then took a shower.

In the end, nothing special happened today, but I just got to be home and do stuff. No driving, no real obligations, and soon we're going to head to the Duimstra's for pizza. Yaa-HOOO-oo-OO!

Dancing, and weird garden problems

Annika's dance recital was last Saturday. The picture pretty much says it all.

In bizarre garden news:

First, the normal stuff: We are making a good effort, I think. Things are growing well, despite the fact that we've replaced some of the tomato plants twice after the cutworms ate them. We resorted to chemicals. In addition, we've put up strings to keep us and the girls from walking on the plants, we're watering well and Lisa's weeding frequently. Fortunately, we're pretty far from the woods, so we don't have many worries about critters getting in the garden. One of our neighbors has seen deer tracks in her garden.

Then the bizarre stuff: I came home today, and two neighbor girls met me in the garage, almost anxious to talk to me (which is not normal). They informed me that today we had cows - cows! - in our garden. COWS!! Sure enough, there were deep hoofprints all over the garden, and near the swingset. Somehow, they didn't do too much damage, although they apparently tried to eat some strawberries. There's a pasture with cows about a quarter mile from our house. They got out. I wish I could've seen it.

How do you prepare for cows in your garden?

A and A

Amazingly enough, the girls continue to grow. We had them in matching dresses last Sunday, but it was impossible to get them in a decent picture together, which is why there are two pictures here. Annika finished a great year of preschool and gets to be a kindergardener next year at Millbrook. Her dance recital is tonight, and maybe I'll get a picture up from that soon. It's nice to have some warm weather so the girls can play outside.
Speaking of the outdoors, here are the recent highlights: today Annika found a snapping turtle in the yard, about a foot or more long. There's a killdeer nest in our neighbor's garden that we keep tabs on. I saw a pileated woodpecker across the street for sure (it's bigger than a crow). Our garden is doing pretty well, although we already replaced the tomato plants once, and the second set aren't doing so well either (cutworms). Our sunflowers are sprouting like mad, as is the lettuce, whose seeds we got from Rebecca (thanks!). I planted almost 150 annuals last weekend, and put some zinnias around the house today. It's all good out there.