Ten Things That Are On My Mind

1) Hot.  It is hot.  Wiltingly hot.  Smotheringly hot.  And I like hot weather.  We had friends over last night and as they said their good-byes around ten o'clock and we saw them out the front door, we were hit with a wave of sultry air that felt like walking into a steam room.  And this was ten o'clock at night!  It is freaking hot.

2) Huckleberry Finn.  I'm teaching it this week.  In a class about censorship.  Tomorrow we have to talk about how we're going to talk about the "N" word.  It is not a conversation I'm really looking forward to because I don't want it to get used lightly, but I also don't want to censor language in a course on censorship.  This reminds me of why I like to teach Victorian novels:  their controversies are less controversial.  I mean, people get pregnant out of wedlock and if you're not reading carefully, you can miss it entirely and not know what they're talking about a few chapters later when they start having whispered conversations making arrangements regarding the character's "condition."

3) Babies!  I know so many pregnant people right now that it is unbelievable.  Two sets of twins and four other babies on the way.  The way pregnancy is going around you'd think you catch it like herpes.  Oh wait...  Also the film Babies, which I saw a couple of weeks ago and found quite fascinating.  A sister of a friend of mine is adopting a baby from Ethiopia, and I've been following their story here.  Also I'm planning a baby shower for one of my friends and we're hitting that point where we've been to enough showers that we're sort of out of games.  Do we just have a gameless shower?  I feel like I need to get creative about this...  Suggestions would be welcome.

4) Arrested Development.  I watched season 1 of this show on Netflix instant queue and loved it.  Like I still think about it and giggle.  And sometimes Buster reminds me of my brother...

5) Suits and dress shoes.  David signs his contract today and as the assistant principal, he has decided he needs to stock up on dress clothes.  Evidently athletic shorts and t-shirts are no longer acceptable career wear for him.  He got three new pairs of dress pants over the weekend and we went suit shopping on Sunday but found nothing to suit him (he's very particular about flat front trousers and jackets that are fitted but not too fitted).  After a while, every gray suit jacket starts to look alike so then I insisted we take a break and tackle suit shopping again another day.  Also David, in all seriousness, showed me two pairs of nearly-identical shoes and asked which I liked better.  I had no preference, so I picked one.  He said, "I already own these in brown, so I was going to get these others in black."  I'm so glad my shoe collection is not boring.

6) Korea.  Our trip to Korea is coming up at the end of July.  Brandon is making some kind of itinerary for us that includes outdoor markets, major tourist attractions, a baseball game, a trip to Suwon, and who knows what else.  I have never been to that part of the world and I am so excited and so curious about it.  I will be documenting the trip here so *get excited!*

7) Ticks.  We went to the Lake of the Ozarks over the weekend and hiked on a couple of short trails.  I found no fewer than 10 ticks on me in about two hours.  I am so grossed out by ticks.  Also ticks make me think of the summer that Jamie and I lived in Colorado and Monica's family was there visiting one weekend.  Monica's little sister was about five and she was very interested in the tattoo of a turtle that Jamie has on her foot.  She studied the tattoo carefully and then looked and Jamie and said suspiciously, "Is that a tattoo of a tick?"  Jamie was slightly offended told her no, it was a turtle.  Later she said to me, "Only a kid from Nevada would think of that!"  This is probably true.

8) Key lime pie.  I'd really like some.  I've never made it before.  I have an idea that it would be difficult, but maybe I need to take on that challenge.

9) Dog hair.  It's everywhere!  Little Mac got a haircut, which has helped a little bit, but Cooper is the real culprit.  It's horrifying to wash our sheets and find the dryer vent filled with dog hair.  And yet we continue to sleep with the filthy beast.  He's our fur-baby.

10) Summer reading.  If I could spend my summer any way I wanted, I'd read a novel a day.  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm teaching a novel a week and making time to read on the side and it is so delicious.  I haven't read anything wonderful yet, so I'm definitely open to recommendations.  Next on my list is to read Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood and then read the novel Drood that fictionalizes the composition of Dickens's final (and unfinished) work.  I've also requested a nonfiction book from the library called Methland and I'd love to find a really good suspenseful mystery...