Steven Harper's Blog, page 42
September 20, 2020
The Plague Diaries: Teaching
Teaching under the pandemic continues to challenge. I don't feel a good connection with my students. Because we meet in video conference, there are no "extra" conversations, the casual encounters where you talk about what's going on outside of class. There's no, "I heard you got cast in the play," or "You play the violin, I see," or "You came from Traverse City? That must have been a beautiful place to grow up." No one lingers in the classroom to talk about anything, no one drops by between classes, no one stops you in the hallway. When class ends, POOF! Everyone vanishes, and I'm alone in my home office.
During class, I've learned to talk to the camera so I don't seem to be staring downward on the screen, but it feels like I'm in a recording studio, not in a classroom.
And the time, time, time . . .
It takes so much time to teach. I've been teaching for more than 25 years, and I have all the lesson plans and activities and assignments from those 25 years. After all this time, I've learned what works and what doesn't. (This is why I get persnickety when someone else tries to tell me what "best practices" are.) When a particular unit comes up, I have a long, long list of things I can do to teach the associated concepts, and I modify them slightly based on what my current students are like. The most tedious part about lesson planning is running copies.
But now? Most of my lessons won't work in Zoom. Large group discussions are almost impossible. Most of my physical materials (practice sheets, quizzes, annotations, and more) are unfeasible. This means I have to create everything new. Make no mistake--I'm very good at it. I have 25 years of art, science, and instinct to guide me. But it takes so. Much. TIME.
Classes are 105 minutes twice a week instead of 60 minutes five times a week, so my lesson plans themselves have to be re-timed. Assignments have to be created or adapted so they'll work in Google Classroom. Everything has to be uploaded, scheduled, double-checked. And then, of course, I have to grade it all.
And every single thing happens in front of a screen. It's strains my eyes. It makes me restless. When I teach, I move around the room a lot. In Zoom, I have to sit in one place. All, Freaking. Day. By 3:00, I'm brain dead.
There are a few advantages. I don't have many discipline issues. In a regular class, I spend a great deal of time quieting the class so everyone can learn. My most common comment is, "Quiet, now!" Now? My most common comment is, "Cameras on, please." There are no side conversations and very few interruptions. I have one student who likes to spin his chair during class, and I have to admonish him. "You're distracting the class and need to stop now. Thank you." I have no commute. I eat lunch in my own kitchen. I have a view of the lake. I have easy access to a bathroom. (This last is a major issue for all teachers. A lot of people don't know that teachers spend a lot of time figuring out how and when to take a bathroom break.)
It's not the best way to teach. Still, it beats getting COVID-19.
comments
During class, I've learned to talk to the camera so I don't seem to be staring downward on the screen, but it feels like I'm in a recording studio, not in a classroom.
And the time, time, time . . .
It takes so much time to teach. I've been teaching for more than 25 years, and I have all the lesson plans and activities and assignments from those 25 years. After all this time, I've learned what works and what doesn't. (This is why I get persnickety when someone else tries to tell me what "best practices" are.) When a particular unit comes up, I have a long, long list of things I can do to teach the associated concepts, and I modify them slightly based on what my current students are like. The most tedious part about lesson planning is running copies.
But now? Most of my lessons won't work in Zoom. Large group discussions are almost impossible. Most of my physical materials (practice sheets, quizzes, annotations, and more) are unfeasible. This means I have to create everything new. Make no mistake--I'm very good at it. I have 25 years of art, science, and instinct to guide me. But it takes so. Much. TIME.
Classes are 105 minutes twice a week instead of 60 minutes five times a week, so my lesson plans themselves have to be re-timed. Assignments have to be created or adapted so they'll work in Google Classroom. Everything has to be uploaded, scheduled, double-checked. And then, of course, I have to grade it all.
And every single thing happens in front of a screen. It's strains my eyes. It makes me restless. When I teach, I move around the room a lot. In Zoom, I have to sit in one place. All, Freaking. Day. By 3:00, I'm brain dead.
There are a few advantages. I don't have many discipline issues. In a regular class, I spend a great deal of time quieting the class so everyone can learn. My most common comment is, "Quiet, now!" Now? My most common comment is, "Cameras on, please." There are no side conversations and very few interruptions. I have one student who likes to spin his chair during class, and I have to admonish him. "You're distracting the class and need to stop now. Thank you." I have no commute. I eat lunch in my own kitchen. I have a view of the lake. I have easy access to a bathroom. (This last is a major issue for all teachers. A lot of people don't know that teachers spend a lot of time figuring out how and when to take a bathroom break.)
It's not the best way to teach. Still, it beats getting COVID-19.
comments
September 1, 2020
So We're Back
We're back teaching. Sort of. And it's exhausting!
The Wherever district elected to go for distance learning only this year. At minimum, we'll be doing this for the first card marking, which ends November 1, but with the provision that we =may= be doing it for the entire first semester. (I'm actually betting we'll be doing it for the semester.)
They also changed the schedule for high school. Instead of having six one-hour classes per day, we're having three 105-minute classes per day. On "A" days, hours 1-3 meet, and on "B" days, 4-6 meet. And the instruction is all on-line in Zoom and Google Classroom.
This created a flurry of activity before school began. We teachers had to set up our Google Classrooms, created online lesson plans, and contact all the students to let them know how to find us on Zoom. I had to set up Zoom meetings. I had to email and re-email students who dropped my classes or were added to them. (This latter thing went on until late Sunday evening.) It was a hella lotta work.
I stressed over running class on Zoom. I didn't use Zoom much last spring and still didn't feel comfortable with it. Not with a large group of students. I worried that we'd run into tech problems that would derail class, or that the students would have trouble, or that it wouldn't be effective, or . . . or . . . or . . .
On the plus side, classes start at 8:05 AM instead of 7:15 AM, a major bonus for a non-morning person like me. My commute time is literally zero. I don't have to drive through a harrowing gauntlet of student drivers in the morning and again after work. I have more break time at lunch because I don't have to go anywhere, or wait for students to leave the room.
My life wouldn't be in danger because of my job.
On Monday, I got up at the late hour of 6:45. (My usual rising time is 5:50.) I had breakfast, then shooed Darwin out of bed at 7:30--our bedroom and office are in the same room and it would be awkward for everyone involved if Darwin hadn't gotten up when my first Zoom meeting went live! I got all my files up and ready with ten minutes to spare, then started up Zoom. And . . . go!
It all went fairly well. It's not the way I want to teach, and I'd never do it this way by choice, but it beats exposure to COVID-19.
After teaching four 105-minute classes with a break for lunch, though, I was wiped out. And I still had prep to do. I didn't really get done until suppertime.
Today was Day Two. Things went decently, but I was still wiped by the time it was over, and I had (have) even more prep work. Next week's lesson plans won't write themselves, and it's better to do them now than do them later, when I'll have homework to grade on top of everything.
I'm assuming (hoping) it'll get easier as time passes, but right now I'm wiped out and trying to focus on the positive side of all this.
comments
The Wherever district elected to go for distance learning only this year. At minimum, we'll be doing this for the first card marking, which ends November 1, but with the provision that we =may= be doing it for the entire first semester. (I'm actually betting we'll be doing it for the semester.)
They also changed the schedule for high school. Instead of having six one-hour classes per day, we're having three 105-minute classes per day. On "A" days, hours 1-3 meet, and on "B" days, 4-6 meet. And the instruction is all on-line in Zoom and Google Classroom.
This created a flurry of activity before school began. We teachers had to set up our Google Classrooms, created online lesson plans, and contact all the students to let them know how to find us on Zoom. I had to set up Zoom meetings. I had to email and re-email students who dropped my classes or were added to them. (This latter thing went on until late Sunday evening.) It was a hella lotta work.
I stressed over running class on Zoom. I didn't use Zoom much last spring and still didn't feel comfortable with it. Not with a large group of students. I worried that we'd run into tech problems that would derail class, or that the students would have trouble, or that it wouldn't be effective, or . . . or . . . or . . .
On the plus side, classes start at 8:05 AM instead of 7:15 AM, a major bonus for a non-morning person like me. My commute time is literally zero. I don't have to drive through a harrowing gauntlet of student drivers in the morning and again after work. I have more break time at lunch because I don't have to go anywhere, or wait for students to leave the room.
My life wouldn't be in danger because of my job.
On Monday, I got up at the late hour of 6:45. (My usual rising time is 5:50.) I had breakfast, then shooed Darwin out of bed at 7:30--our bedroom and office are in the same room and it would be awkward for everyone involved if Darwin hadn't gotten up when my first Zoom meeting went live! I got all my files up and ready with ten minutes to spare, then started up Zoom. And . . . go!
It all went fairly well. It's not the way I want to teach, and I'd never do it this way by choice, but it beats exposure to COVID-19.
After teaching four 105-minute classes with a break for lunch, though, I was wiped out. And I still had prep to do. I didn't really get done until suppertime.
Today was Day Two. Things went decently, but I was still wiped by the time it was over, and I had (have) even more prep work. Next week's lesson plans won't write themselves, and it's better to do them now than do them later, when I'll have homework to grade on top of everything.
I'm assuming (hoping) it'll get easier as time passes, but right now I'm wiped out and trying to focus on the positive side of all this.
comments
August 29, 2020
More Falwell
More to the (Becki) Falwell issue. Notice here that the student on the receiving end of Ms. Falwell's aggression is acting very much like a survivor of predation and sexual assault--because that's what he is. He feels guilt that he "allowed" it to happen, worried that he was being a "home wrecker," felt depressed and frightened and angry, and is afraid to go public with his true identity. Ms. Falwell stalked him and his family, wooed him with expensive gifts he didn't want, made him feel guilty for wanting out of the "relationship," and even made veiled threats to him--exactly like a sexual predator. Earlier I said that whatever Becki and Jerry Falwell did in their bedroom and with whom is their business, but this account makes it clear that Ms. Falwell was (is) a sexual predator, and Mr. Falwell must, at minimum, have known about it, which makes him complicit.
And when you read the part about how Ms. Falwell got into bed with this student, pulled his pants down, and performed oral sex on him, please don't be saying, "Why is this a problem? He should just lay back and enjoy," or "He didn't fight back or try to get away. Clearly he must have wanted it." No. We don't tell women to "lay back and enjoy it" and "why didn't you fight back?" (Well, unfortunately we do, but as a society, we're supposed to know better than to say such things to survivors of sexual assault.) The whole idea that woman can't rape men is ludicrous. And she was the older, hugely wealthy, famous wife of the president of the university this young man was attending. One word from her, and he could have been expelled, which he knew. Ms. Falwell was helping his band by giving them a place to practice and by giving them a place to stay. One word from her, and the band was dead, which he knew. She had established herself as a figure of power and control, and she used that position to repeatedly rape him.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/27/becki-falwell-affair-liberty-university-student-band-jerry-402559
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August 24, 2020
Falling Falwell
So Falwell's sex life involved watching his wife with the pool boy. This isn't a problem by itself--marriages and sex lives have many, many structures, and as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, go them! But Falwell built his life, his business, his fortune on preaching against a number of sexual and relationship acts. He suspended or expelled students from his "university" that didn't meet these standards. He preached numerous times that people who committed various sex acts or entered into certain relationships are dangerous, part of a conspiracy to take over the country, and, of course, all going to hell. He commanded his followers to obey his rules, and he punished them when they didn't. Now it turns out he's been secretly breaking all the rules he's required of his followers--and doing so for YEARS. And working hard to keep it quiet.
This is deeply horrifying, reprehensible, and unforgivable. Rather than use his position of power to tell people that they could live lives of freedom, and enjoy different forms of relationships and sexualities, he punished and harmed and destroyed people who were only doing what he himself enjoyed. He commanded his followers to cast out their own children for acts Falwell himself was doing. Falwell used the fame and wealth handed to him by his father to spread unimaginable harm over hundreds of thousands of families.
And in the meantime, his fear-mongering convinced his followers to hand him millions and millions of dollars, a pile of which he handed over to this pool boy.
The hypocrisy is not just breathtaking. It's damaging and cruel. But, you see, watching your wife with the pool boy isn't illegal. He has resigned his position at Liberty "University," but he still has his houses, his cars, his jet, his millions. This is the biggest hypocrisy of all.
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August 20, 2020
Socially Distant Camping, With Graveyards
A couple weeks ago, Darwin and I decided enough was enough. We needed to get away. But this is a pandemic. What to do?
Camping!
Of course, Darwin and I don't do tent camping at this point in our lives. Instead, we go to Campit Campground, an LGBT campground near Saugatuck in west Michigan and rent a cabin. The campground is huge, and they accommodate tent camping, RV camping, and rustic cabin camping. And it's all LGBT people.
It was a delightful week. The weather was perfect--never too hot or too cold. No bugs. Darwin ordered firewood from the campground office, and they asked, "How many?" "Six!" he replied brightly, thinking they meant "how many logs?" A while later, the campground's errand-runner came out with a trailer piled high with wood. It was six sections of wood, each one the size of a 1'x1' box. So we had this huge woodpile, and it forced us to have a campfire every night. (We still had wood left over!)
Our cabin was basically a wooden box with a knee-high shelf for a bed, though it had a mattress. It also had a small fridge and a very nice deck. And it was surrounded by gay guys. They may strike some of you as funny, but I have to tell you--it's so very wonderful knowing every single person around you is like you and supports you and won't be a source of homophobia. It's why we go to this place.
Usually when Darwin and I go camping (and I realize I'm using the term loosely, here), I don't cook much. We usually go into town and eat in restaurants. But with the pandemic, we wanted to keep that to a minimum, and we brought food with us, along with my camp stove. Darwin had never seen this stove before. It's old--I got it back when I was in college. It's the size of two shoe boxes and has a chamber for liquid propane. You use a tiny hand pump to pressurize it. I like it better than the stoves that use propane canisters--it's less wasteful. Darwin was both fascinated and appalled. "How can you cook on that thing?" he said.
I demonstrated on the first morning by cooking bacon. Cooking bacon outdoors while camping is cruel for everyone around you. The wonderful, crispy bacon smell permeates the fresh morning air, and they know they aren't getting any! The stove impressed Darwin very much. I cooked nearly all our meals on it all week, and did the usual camping trick of setting water on it to heat while we ate so it would be ready for dish washing afterward. I didn't know that Darwin had never done any campground cooking before, and he was more than a little amazed at how smoothly it went.
We did run into one problem. We stopped at the store on our way to the campground, which meant we arrived with a whole mess of bagged groceries, but the cabin had no cupboards or shelves or anything. We put the food and kitchen equipment under the bed, but it was highly disorganized and difficult to find anything, which makes my teeth ache. The next time we were in town, we stopped at another store and I searched for . . . laundry baskets! Two of them. One for food, and one for kitchen stuff. Everything went into the baskets, and the baskets slid neatly under the bed. Ta da!
We lazed around Saugatuck and South Haven, two of our favorite Michigan towns. Saugatuck is crowded with vacationers, even during a pandemic, and we amazed ourselves by scoring a perfect parking place right at the edge of downtown. We kept our masks on, even outdoors, and so did almost everyone else. Progress!
We also came across The Lake Problem.
The Great Lakes are riding way high this season. No, seriously. They're higher than any time in recorded history. And nowhere was this more evident than in Saugatuck and South Haven. Both of them are lake towns, with docks and piers right on the streets. Usually the water levels are low enough that you have to climb down a short ladder on the dock to get to a boat. Now? Many of the docks are underwater. Water has encroached into the streets, forcing some to close. The Saugatuck Fire Department (which is on the river because it also rescues boats) was flooded. Many houses are inches from water in the living room. Inches. Water pumps were everywhere, gamely gooshing water out of the street and back into the lake, only to have it return a few minutes later. Nature always wins in the end.
We love South Haven so much that we joke about Darwin becoming city manager there one day as a retirement job. While we were out there, he learned by accident that South Haven is currently looking for a new city manager. (!!) He isn't going to apply, but it was a head-shaking moment.
We shopped and ate ice cream (and made sure Darwin used his insulin pump) and worked out bits of local history by studying the architecture of buildings and houses (What? What do YOU do on vacation?).
And we hunted graveyards.
See, Darwin has a number of ancestors who are buried out in that area, and he wanted to find their graves. For a couple a days, we wandered through Niles and Berrien Springs. Here, I was invaluable. Totally true! (Since this blog is All About Me.) One graveyard surrounded a white, clapboard church way out in the country, a church that Darwin's great-grandparents helped found. Their graves were somewhere in the graveyard, and I finally found them. They were only a few yards from the church, and as far as Darwin and I could tell, they must have been among the first people buried there. It was very interesting.
A side note: the church's outhouse was still standing. It was divided into two sections, each with two seats. I said to Darwin, "Your great-grandparents pooped in here." And he nodded sagely.
Back to my invaluable-ness: Later, outside Niles, we were hunting through another cemetery for the grave of another ancestor, though this one didn't have the last name McClary. We looked and looked, but found nothing. Finally, I found something that made my jaw drop. Darwin was in another part of the graveyard, distracted by an odd inscription. I trotted over to him.
"Come over here and look," I said.
"Hold on," he said. "I want to see what--"
"No, no," I interrupted. "You want to see this. Right now."
Sighing at the perfidy of husbands, he trudged over to where I was pointing and at last realization came over him. =His= jaw dropped. In the middle back of the graveyard, occupying a prominent position, was a large stone marker engraved with one word: MCCLARY.
This was a major find. Darwin didn't know that he had a McClary presence in this graveyard. Darwin immediately set about checking the stones. He found a number of relatives buried in that plot, and these were graves he wasn't sure he'd ever see. One was for a great-great uncle who lived on his own farm all his life, never married, and who eventually committed suicide by poison. Darwin suspects that he was gay, and the guilt and pressure from a homophobic society and upbringing finally forced him over the edge. I agree with him.
It must also be said that Darwin had a miracle find of his own. We scoured the little graveyard, which was surrounded by a thick woodland on three sides and on the fourth by a busy road, looking for the non-McClary ancestor Darwin really wanted to find, and came up empty. Finally, we called it a day and got into the car. As I was driving toward the exit, Darwin yelped, "Wait! Wait! Stop!"
I did, and he got out. A gravestone we had both seen before but passed over because it was too hard to read, had become legible after the sun moved and changed the way the shadows fell. Darwin happened to catch sight of it as we were heading out, and it was the very grave he'd come there to find. Win!
As we're wont to do, Darwin and I also spent some time exploring small town downtowns, commenting on the old buildings and whether the place was a decent one or not. Many of the small downtowns we looked at had basically been wrecked by the local highway system. Back when the state started linking up little towns with the then-new highways, the state just incorporated the town's main street into the highway. The towns initially welcomed this--it brought more traffic and people to town. But this was back when "traffic" still involved horses and those new-fangled automobiles that went a shocking thirty miles an hour. As time went on, cars became faster, and semi trucks appeared on the scene, and they all use a highway system designed back in the 1920s.
Now, the nice little downtowns are being wrecked by roaring traffic. You might we strolling down the sidewalk, wondering if there's a cafe for lunch, when two semis and a dump truck bellow past you in a cloud of acrid diesel fumes, followed by a long line of cars that whoosh and rush and drown out both conversation and enjoyment. And none of them are stopping in the downtown to shop or eat or do anything. To them, the town is just a place that slows you down for a minute before you pound back up to 55. It's a terrible shame, but it does give Darwin and me something to complain about. You take your wins where you can.
The weather continued to be a delight--warm during the day, cool at night. Perfect for campfires. It was a fine week!
comments
Camping!
Of course, Darwin and I don't do tent camping at this point in our lives. Instead, we go to Campit Campground, an LGBT campground near Saugatuck in west Michigan and rent a cabin. The campground is huge, and they accommodate tent camping, RV camping, and rustic cabin camping. And it's all LGBT people.
It was a delightful week. The weather was perfect--never too hot or too cold. No bugs. Darwin ordered firewood from the campground office, and they asked, "How many?" "Six!" he replied brightly, thinking they meant "how many logs?" A while later, the campground's errand-runner came out with a trailer piled high with wood. It was six sections of wood, each one the size of a 1'x1' box. So we had this huge woodpile, and it forced us to have a campfire every night. (We still had wood left over!)
Our cabin was basically a wooden box with a knee-high shelf for a bed, though it had a mattress. It also had a small fridge and a very nice deck. And it was surrounded by gay guys. They may strike some of you as funny, but I have to tell you--it's so very wonderful knowing every single person around you is like you and supports you and won't be a source of homophobia. It's why we go to this place.
Usually when Darwin and I go camping (and I realize I'm using the term loosely, here), I don't cook much. We usually go into town and eat in restaurants. But with the pandemic, we wanted to keep that to a minimum, and we brought food with us, along with my camp stove. Darwin had never seen this stove before. It's old--I got it back when I was in college. It's the size of two shoe boxes and has a chamber for liquid propane. You use a tiny hand pump to pressurize it. I like it better than the stoves that use propane canisters--it's less wasteful. Darwin was both fascinated and appalled. "How can you cook on that thing?" he said.
I demonstrated on the first morning by cooking bacon. Cooking bacon outdoors while camping is cruel for everyone around you. The wonderful, crispy bacon smell permeates the fresh morning air, and they know they aren't getting any! The stove impressed Darwin very much. I cooked nearly all our meals on it all week, and did the usual camping trick of setting water on it to heat while we ate so it would be ready for dish washing afterward. I didn't know that Darwin had never done any campground cooking before, and he was more than a little amazed at how smoothly it went.
We did run into one problem. We stopped at the store on our way to the campground, which meant we arrived with a whole mess of bagged groceries, but the cabin had no cupboards or shelves or anything. We put the food and kitchen equipment under the bed, but it was highly disorganized and difficult to find anything, which makes my teeth ache. The next time we were in town, we stopped at another store and I searched for . . . laundry baskets! Two of them. One for food, and one for kitchen stuff. Everything went into the baskets, and the baskets slid neatly under the bed. Ta da!
We lazed around Saugatuck and South Haven, two of our favorite Michigan towns. Saugatuck is crowded with vacationers, even during a pandemic, and we amazed ourselves by scoring a perfect parking place right at the edge of downtown. We kept our masks on, even outdoors, and so did almost everyone else. Progress!
We also came across The Lake Problem.
The Great Lakes are riding way high this season. No, seriously. They're higher than any time in recorded history. And nowhere was this more evident than in Saugatuck and South Haven. Both of them are lake towns, with docks and piers right on the streets. Usually the water levels are low enough that you have to climb down a short ladder on the dock to get to a boat. Now? Many of the docks are underwater. Water has encroached into the streets, forcing some to close. The Saugatuck Fire Department (which is on the river because it also rescues boats) was flooded. Many houses are inches from water in the living room. Inches. Water pumps were everywhere, gamely gooshing water out of the street and back into the lake, only to have it return a few minutes later. Nature always wins in the end.
We love South Haven so much that we joke about Darwin becoming city manager there one day as a retirement job. While we were out there, he learned by accident that South Haven is currently looking for a new city manager. (!!) He isn't going to apply, but it was a head-shaking moment.
We shopped and ate ice cream (and made sure Darwin used his insulin pump) and worked out bits of local history by studying the architecture of buildings and houses (What? What do YOU do on vacation?).
And we hunted graveyards.
See, Darwin has a number of ancestors who are buried out in that area, and he wanted to find their graves. For a couple a days, we wandered through Niles and Berrien Springs. Here, I was invaluable. Totally true! (Since this blog is All About Me.) One graveyard surrounded a white, clapboard church way out in the country, a church that Darwin's great-grandparents helped found. Their graves were somewhere in the graveyard, and I finally found them. They were only a few yards from the church, and as far as Darwin and I could tell, they must have been among the first people buried there. It was very interesting.
A side note: the church's outhouse was still standing. It was divided into two sections, each with two seats. I said to Darwin, "Your great-grandparents pooped in here." And he nodded sagely.
Back to my invaluable-ness: Later, outside Niles, we were hunting through another cemetery for the grave of another ancestor, though this one didn't have the last name McClary. We looked and looked, but found nothing. Finally, I found something that made my jaw drop. Darwin was in another part of the graveyard, distracted by an odd inscription. I trotted over to him.
"Come over here and look," I said.
"Hold on," he said. "I want to see what--"
"No, no," I interrupted. "You want to see this. Right now."
Sighing at the perfidy of husbands, he trudged over to where I was pointing and at last realization came over him. =His= jaw dropped. In the middle back of the graveyard, occupying a prominent position, was a large stone marker engraved with one word: MCCLARY.
This was a major find. Darwin didn't know that he had a McClary presence in this graveyard. Darwin immediately set about checking the stones. He found a number of relatives buried in that plot, and these were graves he wasn't sure he'd ever see. One was for a great-great uncle who lived on his own farm all his life, never married, and who eventually committed suicide by poison. Darwin suspects that he was gay, and the guilt and pressure from a homophobic society and upbringing finally forced him over the edge. I agree with him.
It must also be said that Darwin had a miracle find of his own. We scoured the little graveyard, which was surrounded by a thick woodland on three sides and on the fourth by a busy road, looking for the non-McClary ancestor Darwin really wanted to find, and came up empty. Finally, we called it a day and got into the car. As I was driving toward the exit, Darwin yelped, "Wait! Wait! Stop!"
I did, and he got out. A gravestone we had both seen before but passed over because it was too hard to read, had become legible after the sun moved and changed the way the shadows fell. Darwin happened to catch sight of it as we were heading out, and it was the very grave he'd come there to find. Win!
As we're wont to do, Darwin and I also spent some time exploring small town downtowns, commenting on the old buildings and whether the place was a decent one or not. Many of the small downtowns we looked at had basically been wrecked by the local highway system. Back when the state started linking up little towns with the then-new highways, the state just incorporated the town's main street into the highway. The towns initially welcomed this--it brought more traffic and people to town. But this was back when "traffic" still involved horses and those new-fangled automobiles that went a shocking thirty miles an hour. As time went on, cars became faster, and semi trucks appeared on the scene, and they all use a highway system designed back in the 1920s.
Now, the nice little downtowns are being wrecked by roaring traffic. You might we strolling down the sidewalk, wondering if there's a cafe for lunch, when two semis and a dump truck bellow past you in a cloud of acrid diesel fumes, followed by a long line of cars that whoosh and rush and drown out both conversation and enjoyment. And none of them are stopping in the downtown to shop or eat or do anything. To them, the town is just a place that slows you down for a minute before you pound back up to 55. It's a terrible shame, but it does give Darwin and me something to complain about. You take your wins where you can.
The weather continued to be a delight--warm during the day, cool at night. Perfect for campfires. It was a fine week!
comments
August 16, 2020
Loving Lucy
Since CBS All-Access made a pile of I LOVE LUCY episodes available, I've been binge-watching them. I have . . . observations.
--It's great fun looking at the 1950s lifestyle, even if it's the Hollywood comedy version. The historical and pop culture references (I had to look up who William Holden and Richard Widmark were) are also a lot of fun. And it's interesting to look at the appliances and how housework was done. We see the impact of "new" appliances like washing machines, dryers, and electric irons.
--This is definitely Lucille Ball's show. You can almost see her standing behind the writers and the director saying, "This is MY show, bitch! I get the last line, the last shot, the last joke. I get the screen time. You forget that for one minute, and VOOP! You're gone." You can tell she ran that show with an iron fist.
--There's no television in the Ricardo living room. Although a couple episodes revolve around a television, the TV always quietly vanishes the rest of the time. The Ricardos also make reference to a shower, but we never see a bathroom. I can't even tell where it's supposed to be--there's no door anywhere on the set that would lead to one!
--The show never, ever has a subplot. It's only one continuous story. It's weird, to a modern viewer. FRIENDS, as a counter-example, always had a B story and often a C story. By modern standards, the show's plots are often slow, and the jokes spaces way far apart. In an episode of FRIENDS, every line is a joke or a setup for a joke. On LUCY, you can go four or five exchanges before someone says something funny. I just watched one episode in which Lucy and Fred fall asleep on a ferry, and three full minutes are nothing but them sleeping in weird positions. Expectations were different back then!
--The scene early where Ricky tells his son "Little Red Riding Hood" in Spanish is one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen, and it deserves a lot more recognition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re-k5m0OsTY
--A lot of the show wouldn't fly today, and is sometimes unnerving to watch. Ricky threatens to hit Lucy many, many times. Also many times, Lucy acts scared that Ricky will beat her when he finds out about her latest shenanigans. And I've counted three times so far when Ricky literally bends Lucy over his lap and spanks her with a look of ghoulish glee on his face. After one of these incidents, Lucy visits Ethel, who tells her to have a seat. "I don't think I can," Lucy says in a pained voice, and she remains standing. In other words, Ricky beat Lucy so badly she can't sit down. Holy shit.
--When the Ricardos move to Hollywood for a season, we get to see how powerful Lucille Ball was. The season sports an endless parade of A-list Hollywood stars, including the aforementioned William Holden. The show has him get blasted with a tray of cream pies in a restaurant, and there's one shot of Holden sitting in his booth, covered in goo, and you can see he's desperately trying not to laugh--in no small part because if he did, they'd have to do it all over again! The scene was apparently an audience favorite because every time the Ricardos ran into another male star on the show, he'd ask, "Did Lucy really hit Bill Holden with a pie?" (Also apparently, these stars lived in real-life terror that Lucy would require something equally sticky of them!)
--The show was so popular that they got Rock Hudson to appear as himself in one episode. The audience clearly didn't know he was coming--you can hear the gasps of surprise when he strolls onstage. And here, your sharp-eyed reviewer caught something. We all know today that Hudson was gay, and the studio guarded this fact strictly back then. Can't have your #1 box office draw and sex symbol be a poof! But when Hudson appears on LUCY in a scene with a swimming pool, he strolls past a group of sunbathers. As he passes by, in what seems to be a bit of improv, he stops and strikes up a brief conversation with a Handsome Shirtless Man, completely ignoring the Lovely Bathing Beauty sitting right next to him. The studio must have had a whole litter of conniption kittens! See for yourself:
--The breathless sexism in the show is staggering. When Lucy and Ethel try to open a dress shop, it's a miserable failure. When Lucy and Ethel get jobs in a candy factory (famous scene), it's a miserable failure. When Lucy and Ethel start a mail-order business, it's a miserable failure. Any time Lucy gets a job outside the home, it's a miserable failure. Because, you know, she's a woman. Lucy is expected to have Ricky's breakfast on the table, including fresh-squeezed orange juice, when he walks out of the bedroom in the morning, and she's expected to have supper on the table when Ricky gets home. She doesn't do it because she's good at it, or because she's handling the home chores so he can work. No, she's clearly doing it because HE EXPECTS IT and he'll be upset if she fails to do so. Ricky also treats Lucy like a child when it comes to money. He gives her a literal allowance each week and he "audits her books" every so often. Lucy, of course, is terrible with money because she's a woman, and we know women can't handle money. (I think it would have been funnier--and edgier--if Lucy handled the money and gave Ricky an allowance, but they had to keep this a secret so everyone wouldn't make fun of Ricky.)
--By today's standards, Fred it astonishingly mean to Ethel, calling her a cow, calling her fat (and she clearly ain't fat), carping and criticizing her every move. She's no angel with him, either, but she rarely snarks about his appearance. According to the stuff I've read, Vivian Lance couldn't stand William Frawley. She was outspoken that the studio shouldn't have cast someone twenty years older than she was for her husband. I actually agree. In an attempt to create a foil for Lucy and Ricky's happy marriage, they created a couple that come across as mean and spiteful to each other. We never see moments of love or tenderness between Fred and Ethel, and we never see the reason they got married in the first place, especially with their age difference. I think the studio should have cast a younger man for Ethel's husband and given them at least an occasional moment of affection.
--The show is still entertaining and funny and watchable, even after 65 years.
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--It's great fun looking at the 1950s lifestyle, even if it's the Hollywood comedy version. The historical and pop culture references (I had to look up who William Holden and Richard Widmark were) are also a lot of fun. And it's interesting to look at the appliances and how housework was done. We see the impact of "new" appliances like washing machines, dryers, and electric irons.
--This is definitely Lucille Ball's show. You can almost see her standing behind the writers and the director saying, "This is MY show, bitch! I get the last line, the last shot, the last joke. I get the screen time. You forget that for one minute, and VOOP! You're gone." You can tell she ran that show with an iron fist.
--There's no television in the Ricardo living room. Although a couple episodes revolve around a television, the TV always quietly vanishes the rest of the time. The Ricardos also make reference to a shower, but we never see a bathroom. I can't even tell where it's supposed to be--there's no door anywhere on the set that would lead to one!
--The show never, ever has a subplot. It's only one continuous story. It's weird, to a modern viewer. FRIENDS, as a counter-example, always had a B story and often a C story. By modern standards, the show's plots are often slow, and the jokes spaces way far apart. In an episode of FRIENDS, every line is a joke or a setup for a joke. On LUCY, you can go four or five exchanges before someone says something funny. I just watched one episode in which Lucy and Fred fall asleep on a ferry, and three full minutes are nothing but them sleeping in weird positions. Expectations were different back then!
--The scene early where Ricky tells his son "Little Red Riding Hood" in Spanish is one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen, and it deserves a lot more recognition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re-k5m0OsTY
--A lot of the show wouldn't fly today, and is sometimes unnerving to watch. Ricky threatens to hit Lucy many, many times. Also many times, Lucy acts scared that Ricky will beat her when he finds out about her latest shenanigans. And I've counted three times so far when Ricky literally bends Lucy over his lap and spanks her with a look of ghoulish glee on his face. After one of these incidents, Lucy visits Ethel, who tells her to have a seat. "I don't think I can," Lucy says in a pained voice, and she remains standing. In other words, Ricky beat Lucy so badly she can't sit down. Holy shit.
--When the Ricardos move to Hollywood for a season, we get to see how powerful Lucille Ball was. The season sports an endless parade of A-list Hollywood stars, including the aforementioned William Holden. The show has him get blasted with a tray of cream pies in a restaurant, and there's one shot of Holden sitting in his booth, covered in goo, and you can see he's desperately trying not to laugh--in no small part because if he did, they'd have to do it all over again! The scene was apparently an audience favorite because every time the Ricardos ran into another male star on the show, he'd ask, "Did Lucy really hit Bill Holden with a pie?" (Also apparently, these stars lived in real-life terror that Lucy would require something equally sticky of them!)
--The show was so popular that they got Rock Hudson to appear as himself in one episode. The audience clearly didn't know he was coming--you can hear the gasps of surprise when he strolls onstage. And here, your sharp-eyed reviewer caught something. We all know today that Hudson was gay, and the studio guarded this fact strictly back then. Can't have your #1 box office draw and sex symbol be a poof! But when Hudson appears on LUCY in a scene with a swimming pool, he strolls past a group of sunbathers. As he passes by, in what seems to be a bit of improv, he stops and strikes up a brief conversation with a Handsome Shirtless Man, completely ignoring the Lovely Bathing Beauty sitting right next to him. The studio must have had a whole litter of conniption kittens! See for yourself:
--The breathless sexism in the show is staggering. When Lucy and Ethel try to open a dress shop, it's a miserable failure. When Lucy and Ethel get jobs in a candy factory (famous scene), it's a miserable failure. When Lucy and Ethel start a mail-order business, it's a miserable failure. Any time Lucy gets a job outside the home, it's a miserable failure. Because, you know, she's a woman. Lucy is expected to have Ricky's breakfast on the table, including fresh-squeezed orange juice, when he walks out of the bedroom in the morning, and she's expected to have supper on the table when Ricky gets home. She doesn't do it because she's good at it, or because she's handling the home chores so he can work. No, she's clearly doing it because HE EXPECTS IT and he'll be upset if she fails to do so. Ricky also treats Lucy like a child when it comes to money. He gives her a literal allowance each week and he "audits her books" every so often. Lucy, of course, is terrible with money because she's a woman, and we know women can't handle money. (I think it would have been funnier--and edgier--if Lucy handled the money and gave Ricky an allowance, but they had to keep this a secret so everyone wouldn't make fun of Ricky.)
--By today's standards, Fred it astonishingly mean to Ethel, calling her a cow, calling her fat (and she clearly ain't fat), carping and criticizing her every move. She's no angel with him, either, but she rarely snarks about his appearance. According to the stuff I've read, Vivian Lance couldn't stand William Frawley. She was outspoken that the studio shouldn't have cast someone twenty years older than she was for her husband. I actually agree. In an attempt to create a foil for Lucy and Ricky's happy marriage, they created a couple that come across as mean and spiteful to each other. We never see moments of love or tenderness between Fred and Ethel, and we never see the reason they got married in the first place, especially with their age difference. I think the studio should have cast a younger man for Ethel's husband and given them at least an occasional moment of affection.
--The show is still entertaining and funny and watchable, even after 65 years.
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July 17, 2020
Lake Living: Hummingbird Update
I filled and hung two hummingbird feeders out on the balcony of our new place, wondering if I'd get any action. Do hummingbirds hang out at lakes? And would they find a new feeder so late in the season, after territory and feeding grounds have been long established? And would they find one way up on the second floor, where flowers generally don't grow in the wild?
I needn't have worried. Within a day, a hummingbird buzzed the potted flowers on the balcony and visited both feeders. A different hummingbird showed up a few hours later. Currently, we have a hummingbird who visits one of the feeders every few minutes. It's a female, and we're guessing she has nestlings somewhere--she drinks a LOT. The feeder was full a few days ago, and now it's almost three-quarters empty!
She's fed twice while I wrote this, in fact. So . . . hummingbirds!
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I needn't have worried. Within a day, a hummingbird buzzed the potted flowers on the balcony and visited both feeders. A different hummingbird showed up a few hours later. Currently, we have a hummingbird who visits one of the feeders every few minutes. It's a female, and we're guessing she has nestlings somewhere--she drinks a LOT. The feeder was full a few days ago, and now it's almost three-quarters empty!
She's fed twice while I wrote this, in fact. So . . . hummingbirds!
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July 16, 2020
Lake Living: Vacation Land
Now that we've moved into the condo on Eagle Lake, a strange feeling has settled over Darwin and me. Brace yourself:
It feels like we're on vacation.
It's true. Over the years, Darwin and I have rented a number of vacation places. Our favorite is to get a cottage on a lake for a week. That's how this place feels. Whenever we look out the window, the lake is there, shining and rippling in the sun. Often, pontoon boats coast past, or someone buzzes by on a Jet-Ski. We went through an unpacking process, and we have to search for a pharmacy, take-out places, and a grocery store, just like you do on vacation. I'm on summer break, and Darwin took a week off to help with the move, then another week because he got sick.
Very strange. It feels like in a few days, we'll be packing up and returning to our old house. I have to remind myself that this is permanent, that we don't own that house anymore.
A side note: I live in Michigan, a state famous for its Great Lakes and its littler lakes. In Michigan, country living usually involves living on a lake. But I grew up in the only part of Michigan that doesn't have easy access to a lake. To me, country living is farmland and forest. Lakes are a place to visit, not a place to live.
Now I actually live on a lake. It's completely different from living among trees. The air on a lake smells different. A cool (or maybe just cooler) breeze usually drifts in from the water. The sky looks bigger, and you can see farther. I realized I don't need to close the curtains on the side of the condo that faces the lake because there's no way anyone can see inside--the lake is empty of people at night, and the opposite shore is too far away. When the sun comes up, the lake is there. Every day, I see ducks and geese and swans and herons and egrets. There's a little area of reeds nearby, so we also hear frogs and redwing blackbirds. (I'm especially glad about the latter. They were everywhere at the house where I grew up and at our previous house, and their trilling song makes me remember being a kid.)
I've set up my writing porch on the balcony. It's smaller than my previous writing porch, but I don't mind. It still faces north, so it's shady all day, and the lake is right there, silver and placid.
And it's exactly the kind of place Darwin and I would rent for a week in the summer. So it feels like I'm on vacation. I have to remind myself that this is permanent. Wow.
A while ago, I realized I've become That Author. The one whose bio says, "The author lives on a lake, where he spends his time kayaking and writing novels on the balcony overlooking the water."
I like my lake place.
It's actually a nice feeling. Now that the stress of the move is over, I'm enjoying this place very much. Every morning, I wake up to a bright, airy space with a lovely view of a lake I can use any time I please.
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It feels like we're on vacation.
It's true. Over the years, Darwin and I have rented a number of vacation places. Our favorite is to get a cottage on a lake for a week. That's how this place feels. Whenever we look out the window, the lake is there, shining and rippling in the sun. Often, pontoon boats coast past, or someone buzzes by on a Jet-Ski. We went through an unpacking process, and we have to search for a pharmacy, take-out places, and a grocery store, just like you do on vacation. I'm on summer break, and Darwin took a week off to help with the move, then another week because he got sick.
Very strange. It feels like in a few days, we'll be packing up and returning to our old house. I have to remind myself that this is permanent, that we don't own that house anymore.
A side note: I live in Michigan, a state famous for its Great Lakes and its littler lakes. In Michigan, country living usually involves living on a lake. But I grew up in the only part of Michigan that doesn't have easy access to a lake. To me, country living is farmland and forest. Lakes are a place to visit, not a place to live.
Now I actually live on a lake. It's completely different from living among trees. The air on a lake smells different. A cool (or maybe just cooler) breeze usually drifts in from the water. The sky looks bigger, and you can see farther. I realized I don't need to close the curtains on the side of the condo that faces the lake because there's no way anyone can see inside--the lake is empty of people at night, and the opposite shore is too far away. When the sun comes up, the lake is there. Every day, I see ducks and geese and swans and herons and egrets. There's a little area of reeds nearby, so we also hear frogs and redwing blackbirds. (I'm especially glad about the latter. They were everywhere at the house where I grew up and at our previous house, and their trilling song makes me remember being a kid.)
I've set up my writing porch on the balcony. It's smaller than my previous writing porch, but I don't mind. It still faces north, so it's shady all day, and the lake is right there, silver and placid.
And it's exactly the kind of place Darwin and I would rent for a week in the summer. So it feels like I'm on vacation. I have to remind myself that this is permanent. Wow.
A while ago, I realized I've become That Author. The one whose bio says, "The author lives on a lake, where he spends his time kayaking and writing novels on the balcony overlooking the water."
I like my lake place.
It's actually a nice feeling. Now that the stress of the move is over, I'm enjoying this place very much. Every morning, I wake up to a bright, airy space with a lovely view of a lake I can use any time I please.
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Lake Living: Retiree Snowbirds
So far, all the households we've seen at the condo complex but one have been retiree snowbirds. They all--ALL--live here in the summer, then zip down to houses in Florida or Georgia or the Carolinas for the winter. The one exception is a younger family with three elementary-school age kids.
The HOA manager, a nice man named Jerry, is in his 80s. He and his wife live right below us. (And they're hard-hit with the parking lot problem, let me tell you.) He is tolerant of my treadmill ("can barely hear it," he said) and has a passel of grandchildren and great-grandchildren who come to visit on occasion. He does have one bad habit, though. Our condo was vacant for two years, and he got used to no one being up here. So he sometimes holds phone conversations on his deck, which is under our balcony and our bedroom window, and we can hear every word.
I'm not sure how to address this with him. I'm not sure I want to--we're getting the inside scoop on a number of HOA issues. :)
Additionally, the condo next to ours on this floor is mostly empty. Jerry owns it, and I think he rents it out on Air BnB or something. We've seen some different people come and go from it, but most of the time it's empty--not a lot of call for short-term rentals during a pandemic. It does mean that we don't have to worry about disturbing the people who share our wall.
I'm guessing this place is gonna become awful quiet after Labor Day!
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The HOA manager, a nice man named Jerry, is in his 80s. He and his wife live right below us. (And they're hard-hit with the parking lot problem, let me tell you.) He is tolerant of my treadmill ("can barely hear it," he said) and has a passel of grandchildren and great-grandchildren who come to visit on occasion. He does have one bad habit, though. Our condo was vacant for two years, and he got used to no one being up here. So he sometimes holds phone conversations on his deck, which is under our balcony and our bedroom window, and we can hear every word.
I'm not sure how to address this with him. I'm not sure I want to--we're getting the inside scoop on a number of HOA issues. :)
Additionally, the condo next to ours on this floor is mostly empty. Jerry owns it, and I think he rents it out on Air BnB or something. We've seen some different people come and go from it, but most of the time it's empty--not a lot of call for short-term rentals during a pandemic. It does mean that we don't have to worry about disturbing the people who share our wall.
I'm guessing this place is gonna become awful quiet after Labor Day!
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The Plague Diaries: COVID-19 Tests and Unexpected Cats, 2 of 2
I hauled two tubs of laundry all the way down to my car (remember the torn-up lot?) and drove to Albion. The cats were thrilled to see me and demanded a great deal in the way of petting after being abandoned for several days.
I started up the laundry. My intent was to write while the machines did their work, but there were a lot of sundry chores around the house that needed doing. I also gathered up all the cat stuff. It was time to move it all.
See, we'd brought Dora and Dinah to Albion because we didn't want them in the way when we were selling the house, packing, moving, and unpacking. But our intent had been all along to have the cats permanently in Waterford. Darwin barely tolerates Dora and Dinah, and definitely doesn't like having them at the house in Albion, where he has to do most of the cat-related chores, since he's there four days out of seven. The cats are really mine (though I frequently remind Darwin that HE chose Dora, not me), and they needed to come to Waterford.
We'd figured on bringing them down in another week. But then Darwin got sick and there was no one at the Albion house to take care of them, and wouldn't be for quite a while. So we moved up the schedule. I would bring them today.
My original plan had been to get some tranquilizers from the vet and set the carriers out at Albion for a week with their food inside them to get them acclimated to them. But--new schedule. No time. It would have to be the hard way.
I set out the cat carriers, which made the cats uneasy, but I gave them treats and turned my main attention to household chores--so much laundry--which calmed them down again. But at last, all the chores were done and I'd loaded everything into the car.
I lured Dinah upstairs with more treats and locked her in a bedroom, then snatched up Dora before she quite understood what was going on, stuffed her into the carrier, and zipped it shut. She freaked badly. She yowled and clawed, and the carrier shook like the Tasmanian devil cage in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Meanwhile, I cornered Dinah upstairs and slid her into the other carrier. She's smaller and more tractable, so it wasn't difficult. But both of them shit in the carriers. I couldn't open the carriers to clean them out, either, because I'd never get the cats back in.
I drove back to Waterford with a carload of yowling cats. Darwin and I hauled them up to the condo and let them out (though I had to clean cat poop off Dora's fur first). They prowled uneasily around the place while I brought up load after load of stuff--two tubs of laundry, cat trees, cat litter, cat food. Why do I have cats, again?
The condo isn't really set up for cats. There's no good spot for a litter box. Neither bathroom is big enough for one, and we didn't want it in the dressing room or in the storage closet with our clothes. In the end, we settled on converting the exercise room closet into the kitty space. I laid down a vinyl floor mat, and there's just enough room for the litter box, bag of litter, and their bowls.
This was four days ago. Dinah and Dora have settled into a new normal, though neither of them is willing to set paw on the balcony, which I find interesting. Dinah stares out the window at the lake like she's trying to figure out what it is. Dora discovered she can lay in her customary place under my desk again, which is what she's doing now.
And the cats are back!
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I started up the laundry. My intent was to write while the machines did their work, but there were a lot of sundry chores around the house that needed doing. I also gathered up all the cat stuff. It was time to move it all.
See, we'd brought Dora and Dinah to Albion because we didn't want them in the way when we were selling the house, packing, moving, and unpacking. But our intent had been all along to have the cats permanently in Waterford. Darwin barely tolerates Dora and Dinah, and definitely doesn't like having them at the house in Albion, where he has to do most of the cat-related chores, since he's there four days out of seven. The cats are really mine (though I frequently remind Darwin that HE chose Dora, not me), and they needed to come to Waterford.
We'd figured on bringing them down in another week. But then Darwin got sick and there was no one at the Albion house to take care of them, and wouldn't be for quite a while. So we moved up the schedule. I would bring them today.
My original plan had been to get some tranquilizers from the vet and set the carriers out at Albion for a week with their food inside them to get them acclimated to them. But--new schedule. No time. It would have to be the hard way.
I set out the cat carriers, which made the cats uneasy, but I gave them treats and turned my main attention to household chores--so much laundry--which calmed them down again. But at last, all the chores were done and I'd loaded everything into the car.
I lured Dinah upstairs with more treats and locked her in a bedroom, then snatched up Dora before she quite understood what was going on, stuffed her into the carrier, and zipped it shut. She freaked badly. She yowled and clawed, and the carrier shook like the Tasmanian devil cage in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Meanwhile, I cornered Dinah upstairs and slid her into the other carrier. She's smaller and more tractable, so it wasn't difficult. But both of them shit in the carriers. I couldn't open the carriers to clean them out, either, because I'd never get the cats back in.
I drove back to Waterford with a carload of yowling cats. Darwin and I hauled them up to the condo and let them out (though I had to clean cat poop off Dora's fur first). They prowled uneasily around the place while I brought up load after load of stuff--two tubs of laundry, cat trees, cat litter, cat food. Why do I have cats, again?
The condo isn't really set up for cats. There's no good spot for a litter box. Neither bathroom is big enough for one, and we didn't want it in the dressing room or in the storage closet with our clothes. In the end, we settled on converting the exercise room closet into the kitty space. I laid down a vinyl floor mat, and there's just enough room for the litter box, bag of litter, and their bowls.
This was four days ago. Dinah and Dora have settled into a new normal, though neither of them is willing to set paw on the balcony, which I find interesting. Dinah stares out the window at the lake like she's trying to figure out what it is. Dora discovered she can lay in her customary place under my desk again, which is what she's doing now.
And the cats are back!
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