tuesday

I crashed into the cement median going 55-60 yesterday after hitting a patch of ice. My car is done for. I'm not feeling so hot either, but nothing's broken. Out of work until next Monday. Gotta get back to the ice packs and bed... Michelle

Turkey Day

We went to Lisa and Nick's in the afternoon to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. This is my FAVORITE holiday. You get to be with family, eat good food, and not worry about presents. It's just a nice time to be together.

Wednesday night, we went to the New Dehli with Paul and Anna, so we got to spend some time with Stephen's side, too, while listening to good music a la Paul Hatleid (Lippold).

Abbey =)
Me and the husband
The three Shaf. kids
Cindy and Lauren

Turkey Run

It was a cold morning yesterday, but we got up and trudged along the streets of downtown Minneapolis with over 6,000 other people for the 5K Turkey Run! Stephen, Jeff, and I came in at 53:30! It was kind of a nice way to start the day =)

As I was driving home today, I came up with the beginnings...

Working title: Bound

I've had a hard time reconciling
the long dark nights
that have slowly arrived.

When the blanket
of evening
tucks in the day,
I feel muffled;
the door has been shut for the night.

To leave the confines of our house,
unthinkable.
I am desperate, helpless.
But not agoraphobic.
Don't get me wrong.
I can leave; I just feel like I can't.
Like it's not an option.
Like I need to cuddle up
to the fire that we don't have.
Put on slippers,
make some tea.

You shouldn't be surprised
to learn, then,
that my favorite day
of the winter
is December 22nd,
when long days melt
into lightness,
and I am assured
that we are indeed
headed once again
into spring.

I hope

that wasn't too new-ageish. I'm really not like that. But I did think it was interesting.

LTF Advice

Interesting...

"..easing your attachment to a struggle-centric reality needn't spell death for your personality."
commitments:
tell the truth
ask for what you want
keep your agreements
take responsibility

from Let it Be Easy: Simple Actions... by Tolly Burkan

Just clearing out a Lifetime Fitness magazine. I always seem to find interesting pieces that I rip out and then somehow forget about...

I woke up

with a headache this morning. You'd think it was caused from beer after having a party for Abbey with five 9 year olds, but no, NO alcohol consumed post-party (or pre, smart asses) ... Or maybe from the noise of girls screaming and running through the house. Hmmm, I teach 7th graders, so five little girls for four hours really doesn't hold a candle to a middle school hallway. No, it is from TOO MUCH SUGAR. Go figure! Must stay away from all forms of chocolate today...

It's almost Friday... that's gotta count for something.

So it was another Wednesday night and another trip to W...gr..ns. I feel like I have to be a little sneaky now because of one reader who searched for said store name on a blog search engine so he could comment and plug his site, which is anti-W (not anti-THAT-W, although, good idea) because he had a bad work comp experience with the company. So while I feel for the man, I do have to admit that I visited the store again last night. I wasn't driving, and it was closest.... as if that makes a conscience any clearer.

But we did emerge, again, with an odd assortment of --------->
throat lozenges
Tylenol drinkable throat fixer-upper
.7 lead
one symapthy card
one Sodaku book, to try for the first time

I still maintain that that store has everything you don't need. It does appear, however, that we do need some of these odds and ends. My personal favorite juxtaposition... maybe the saline nasal spray, pencil top erasers, and motor oil. The lead and sympathy card is pretty good though, too.

Has anyone out there tried S***ku? My brain has trouble functioning that way, so it is interesting for me.(A critical thinking puzzle is one of my worst enemies!) I realized during the thick of graduate school courses that I can get to the answers/solutions to things, but it takes me longer than other people. I also realized that I am a slow reader... which was dissapointing to me for some reason as I have always been a really good student and perceived things to be easy. Not so, I learned. Maybe that's why I'm still talking about finishing my thesis rather than finishing it. No, that's just pure laziness and overworkedness. Procrastination. I can't lie about that one. I'll go to thesis hell... and that's a place that I don't want to be.

As we were driving on 494, we saw a billboard, and I don't quite know what to think about it. It was for Jack Link's beef jerky... "Banana chips can cause figure skating." I didn't get the same connotation Stephen did right away ("Forgive me, for I am a slow study." Can you tell me what play that is from?) So when he explained it as he saw it, I was really surprised that something that bold (and on the side I fundamentally don't agree with) would be up on a billboard.

Bret Ocholik, vice president of marketing, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky: “The heritage of Jack Link’s is steeped in the tradition of the Wisconsin north woods – we’re about being real and having fun."

Does that include buying into stereotypes of men and women and being homophobic, perchance? I DO know what I think about that. Meet my friend (past professor) Paul...

Carmichael Lynch did the ad campaign... The print ad is on their site under Our Stuff, Link Snacks, Inc. Hmmmm.

Then Stephen told me about this... "

Welcome to the visitors' locker room at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium, where pink is the color of choice to weaken and debilitate opposing football players...

There was controversy in Iowa City earlier this season when several professors at Iowa said the color demeans women and homosexuals.

The Wolverines said they don't care what color is used in locker rooms.

'You could paint the locker room pink, you could paint it red, you could paint it white ... a locker room is a locker room,' Michigan receiver Carl Tabb said."

Yeah right, Mr. Tabb. Steroids anyone? (For the record, I generally hate football and have never (and never will be) a Vikings fan.)

cast away

I got a letter from the church I grew up in stating that if they do not hear from me they must consider removing my name from their membership roles. I finally wrote back tonight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 14, 2005



Dear _________,

Thank you for the letter. As I am permanently living in Minneapolis, please release me from membership from St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. While St. Mark’s served me well growing up, I do not desire to be part of a LCMS church as an adult, and I will not be transferring membership at this time. My best to Pastor Roth and Geneal as well as the families I grew up with. I will still be attending Christmas services with my parents.



Sincerely,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you think of that? I am officially a member of NO church. That feels kind of weird. So if I have to have a funeral, where would that take place? Is the Christmas disclaimer lame?

currently

i should be: working on my thesis.

currently, i am: avoiding what i should be doing.

instead, i will round up the troops (all two of them) and head to blockbuster. no, not to get a movie-- you know me better than that. we will be getting wonka bars to make invitations to abbey's wwatcf party set for this saturday. chocolate fondue, oh how i don't need you, but here i come. pin-the-tail-on-augustus, you wonder... just you wait.

so i didn't get sick-sick over the weekend, but i did get sick from taking too much over the counter medicine. as in wake-you-up-at-430am-you'll-be-sorry-if-you-stay-in-bed sick. i don't know, too much acetometaphin? or cold-eeze? it was less than desirable.

but i'll spare you the details.

galway kinnell is speaking at this very moment at plymouth congregational church in downtown mpls. same place we saw ted kooser, poet laureate. but, we've got other family and kid things to do, so i figured we shouldn't push it after i figured we should. it was one of those great last minute ideas that ended up lost. another poet on another day i guess. afterall, we've drug abbey to lawrence ferlenghetti at the u of m (when she was too young and got impatient with us-- do you blame her? can a little little kid really sit still through a long poetry reading? there was bilingual poetry by some other people first) and then ted kooser when he came last year. galway can wait...

you can check out gk here. it would be a great idea...

an attempt

diversity of posts, right? well, i'm teaching free-verse poetry in the writer's workshop right now, so i thought i'd post one of my attempts. now, this does mean that i would be officially outed in my challenge to create a site that neither parents nor students can find, as i have shared this poem with my students, but the chances of that happening are slim to none, as i don't think i have a lot of viewers, and most people don't have time to sift through archives. am i really having this internal conversation with myself? must be the cold medicine... it's been a long week =)


#8 (no title yet)
(poem in process, not done)

It's October
and we're walking through Target.
Abbey needs a costume
so we wind to the back
and find wigs and teeth and eyeballs.
And that's what we want to see,
wigs and teeth and eyeballs.

But when I turn the corner,
I find that Christmas Central has crept in.

What would I want
with cards, plastic reindeer, and garland
in the middle of October?
We haven't even bought the Halloween candy yet!

This is a nightmare.
I don't want perpetual holiday celebrations
invading my life
or the collective consciousness of America.

But I'm too late.
I'm walking through Target in October,
and Christmas Central has already crept in.

-----------------------------------------------------------

So that's the attempt I'll put up for now. I'm working on revising some others. I'm not quite the Billy Collins or Ted Kooser or Mary Oliver that people may think englishy type teachers may be. No, not there yet. =)

I'm working on a different one about the weirdness of leaving your childhood holiday traditions and having to start your own as an adult. well, i guess we really mesh the old and the new together, but it has been an odd part of early adulthood, adjusting to the differences of what you are used to vs what you really need to do or will be doing in the future. i'm struggling with the end, though.

gotta go to the store to get some chest congestion medicine (walgreens? but i did have that one odd comment from someone i don't know about how walgreens really screwed with him as an employee... hmmm.) at any rate, i've been fending off something bad for several days and hoping i can hold off on being sick. don't know now though.

But it was saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And u say what have I got 2 lose?

gawd, my memory is bad. before i set out on the 30 second journey to find those lyrics, i was sadly mistaken that it was "friday night" and that i was somehow clever...

the songs

so here are the songs i decided to include on my comp cd. everyone has gotten theirs, with the exception of james. and james, if you don't like them, too bad because i am sending them to you anyways. when i get your address. =) and i've got to make copies for chris, because he said he'll take the final month. i guess usless he is in some faraway land with cindy then, in which case it would be a little difficult.

here goes:
doubles cd one
1 Deliverance-- Dueling Banjoes
2 Leo Kottke-- Corrina, Corrina
3 Phish-- Blackbird
4 Bob Dylan-- Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
5 Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon-- Living in the Country
6 Dave Matthews Band-- Crash into Me
7 Janis Joplin-- Me and Bobby McGee
8 Grateful Dead-- Uncle John’s Band
9 John Prine-- Angel from Montgomery
10 John Prine - Souvenirs
11 Johnny Cash- I Hung My Head
12 Simon and Garfunkel-- Cecilia
13 Phish-- The Connection
14 Paul Simon-- Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
15 Bob Marley-- No Woman, No Cry

doubles cd 2
1 Weezer-- My Name is Jonas
2 J. Geils Band-- Centerfold
3 The Cure-- Caterpillar
4 Low-- Sunflower
5 Mogwai-- CODY
6 Elliott Smith-- Angeles
7 Five for Fighting-- 100 Years
8 Keane-- Somewhere Only We Know
9 Billy Joel-- Piano Man
10 Jane’s Addiction-- Jane Says
11 Bikini Kill-- Rebel Girl
12 Sonic Youth-- Schizophrenia
13 Modest Mouse-- Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine
14 Built to Spill-- You Were Right
15 Beastie Boys-- So What’cha Want

and then there are the poor, discarded songs that i liked but that didn't fit, size-wise or thematically. in addition to keane and five for fighting, here are several of the songs that i am embarrassed about liking but like nonetheless...
your song by elton john
landslide by stevie nicks
hot child in the city
mmmmmmm. can't remember the others.
i think there was a bratmobile song, but for some reason, it just didn't sound right with the other songs.

so there you go... got confirmation that dave and tanuel are safe and sound in minot. we went out with jeremy twice this weekend, so he filled us in. hit the chatterbox on friday for some beer and trivia. then saturday early evening we told jeremy we'd take him to lifetime fitness for the "bring a friend" saturday... oh, what good friends we are =) we had made plans to meet paul and anna in dinkytown later that evening, so that's how we ended the night. we usually don't have saturdays free, but abbey was to be at a girl scout sleepover, so we made plans. unfortunately, she wasn't feeling well, but she stayed at her mom's... owe you one larson. she felt pretty good sunday and has been great tonight but has felt crappy off and on for about two weeks or so, so we're getting it checked out. gotta keep the child on the up and up...

anyhoo, i'm working on free-verse poetry with my kids at school, so i'll put up some stuff on that later. could be interesting blog material. and like i said, i'm working on variety.

paging...

dave and tanuel... are you out there? in london? in north dakota? btw, the cds went out to todd, amanda, and dave/tanuel c/o larry e. i'll post the somg lists next week. and get to james's and chris's soon. i think that's how you punctuate that, and i looked up a while back (for dickens's) but i've forgotten now.

current listening: the hum of the computer. no mpr all day believe it or not!
would like to be listening to: hmmmm. trey or weezer or sufran stephens (spelled that one wrong)
current reading: finishing a nf read called another planet about prior lake hs.
yeah, just finished: harry potter one
would like to have read: a whole bunch of books
would like to get back to: caramelo by sandra cisneros
maybe i'll finish some day: 100 yrs of solitude, same story from most who have tried...
last movie watched: spellbound (documentary) last week
why that was an anomoly: because i really don't get into movies
we may see tonight: north country
what we'll most likely end up doing: work out at ltf so we can go to the pool and hottub
tomorrow's agenda: more thesis work, yard work, going to the walker maybe
tomorrow "really should do": take the dog to the dog park and visit my sister, take some pants to the alteration shop b/c i'm too short for most pants i buy

hmmm. i'm trying to diversify my posting habits a little. if i were a lurker on my blog, i'd be very, very bored... gotta give a little if you wanna get a little...

poem for a friday

Love Poem With Toast
Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

from Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems, 1999
University of Illinois Press

trey trey trey trey trey

fuck YEAH! center stage FRONT ROW!!!

stephen, chris, jeremy maheny and i
were right there, no one in front of us.
got some ringing ears, but fuck, was it
an amazing show. wishin phish was still
together...

trey played WILSON between sets, and
driver and something else my brother
would remember but i don't/// oh, acdc bag...

this has been a kick ass night... =)

viernes

Oh, it's Friday, and I stayed at work way too long today. Should have been at LTF working out to keep the anxiety bugs away, but somehow my school work pulls too hard. Last week on this day, Stephen, Jeremy, and I went to Comedy Sportz in Calhoun Square. If you haven't been there before, you really need to go, and we need to go again. Two teams compete kind of Whose Line is it Anyway style. Very funny. Then we tried to find a bar in uptown, but it all seemed so meatmarkety, so we ended up at the Chatterbox. Playing Balderdash. Gotta love that game! It was my first time playing, believe it or not. It's the kind of game that English teachers really should love, so I'm good to go. What else? Sunday we took Abbey and her friend, Yana, to an apple orchard in Belle Plain. A little commercial, but we were able to bring home a pie and some honey crisps, so not a whole lotta complaining here. The beginning of this week was super stressful. I was busy trying to grade 170 essays, 7th grade "response to literature" papers. And Stephen worked non-stop with Abbey to finish a huge game board project for her reading class. Way too much time spent being busy, and cluttered, and stressed. Yesterday I had a half day because of my 6 month checkup on the eye with the retina surgery. I guess I'm healing fine. The wave in my left eye vision will get better in the next 5 - 10 years =) Yee haw. Actually, I don't care how long it takes. I can see, and that is the good thing. My retina was damaged when the fluid got in there, so I guess everything is put back together but it won't work perfectly. My vision would be really shitty if my right eye went, too, so I just hope that never happens. After the appt, I was sapped for a good long while. Dilated eyes, a hard drive home in traffic when I really couldn't see, especially through the sexy black eye screen. And my glasses aren't strong enough, but it is expensive to get new lenses... so it was a treat to be in pre-rush hour traffic.

My parents are in town this weekend. It's kind of a running joke when they come because they are here every month or so. Eight hours in the car?? I don't know how they do it, but I am always happy to see them. Means we have to clean the house again. Hmmm.

So there's nothing spectacular going on in my life right now. Didn't win the lottery. Didn't lose the 15 lbs I have been aiming to. Haven't finished the first three chapters of my thesis for grad school. Haven't even had a good girl's night out.

I think the only thing that qualifies as cool is that Stephen's sister, Tricia, had a baby boy this week. I don't mean to down play it... I just remembered after I wrote the last little bit. Jack Chester Babinski =) Up in Anchorage, AK. Poor guy! He has three older sisters to contend with. All blondies. SO actually, that is quite exciting. And our good friends Carrie and Jeff had a little boy about a month ago =)

I'll leave you with a few pictures. Figure I better post something worthwhile since I don't update daily... Have a good weekend!

Garrison Keillor street dance
Chris and Cindy
Our coonhound, Mia

walgreens

last seen walking out of walgreens thursday night with...
ONE pair of speedo swimming goggles
ONE bottle of nasal saline solution
ONE black fine-tooth comb
ONE bottle of motor oil, 5W30

ohhh, how can you not love (to hate) a store that enables you to walk out with a gaggle of THAT? what's that you say? maybe it is the people buying the loot? what would we need with...
ONE pair of speedo swimming goggles
went swimming last night at lifetime and only had one pair for the two of us
ONE bottle of nasal saline solution
have you felt that dry minnesota air lately???
ONE black fine-tooth comb
got a nine year old who needs a straight part on sunday nights
ONE bottle of motor oil, 5W30
does this need any explanation?

no work the past two days. yesterday was spent wasting time and correcting essays. and surprise of all surprises, i didn't make it through another movie! we watched superstar, and i fell asleep during the talent show, only the most important part. that is one of the reasons i don't like movies; they put me right to sleep. today was spent wasting less time, working on my thesis, getting a facial, and now going out with stephen and jeremy.

if you ever were to think that a woman had a beauty secret, i can tell you what it would be-- a european facial. why i waited this long to redeem my gift certificate from my last birthday, i do know. (yeah, eye surgery in march, but still.) marina at sash salon in calhoun beach club is a wanted woman. she does (insert any gagging adjective such as fantastic or marvelous or obscene) things to your face, hands, head, neck, and shoulders. very much worth it.

i'm done with the cd set and will hit the post office tomorrow. looks like we will be entertaining nine people... not too shabby! that gives us all new music until may!

well, that's all for now. it's friday, and we're out of here/// mlgs

paging ms francis

Amanda Francis... please check your blog or friendster and write to me =) Godda get your address to send the cd set. Yes, set! Late, extraordinarily, but doubled. And James T. Boyd... In California??? Sure, you can join. Does May sound good? Holy DORK BOOK, kevin.

galleries

So we went crazy on the galleries today so we could get the necessary stamps on the ART AROUND TOWN booklet and be registered for some prizes. Last week we went to gallery 360 and xylos in the linden hills neighborhood. This week we stuck with the south mpls area as well.

Hit number one: shelly holzemer gallery on 48th and nicollet
Hit number two: sun gallery on 44th and grand
Hit number three: kelly rae theiss gallery on e 44th street
Hit number four: intermedia arts on lake and lyndale approx.
Hit number five: mcad gallery
Turn in the hopefully lucky card at: mia

Yes, we did look at the art. No, we didn't just stamp and run!

Good news for stephen. Friday he met with one of the owners of gallery 360, showed her his portfolio and resume, and she decided to show his work. He'll have three pieces there in late january, and then he'll have a five-foot show (not the main area, but good space) at the end of next summer. This will be with his long photos, which is awesome, because it's long overdue that he gets these into galleries. He's also been shooting with his new medium format camera, and the quality of the photos is outstanding.

Happy travels to CINDY who left to live in costa rica ... flew out on thursday. Mom and dad say to keep an eye on chris, since he isn't going until january and is my softie little brother, even though you may not guess that about him. Ask him about the frog caught for frog's legs at the lake... Well, maybe you'd better not!

We had a very strange encounter at walgreens this week. Not that anything happened, but we left the store with the oddest barrage of items:
pack of lint traps
two packs of trident
velcro strips
riesens
eraser tops
red vine
light bulbs

yeahhhhhh.

Kim and seamus are having a house warming party tonight that we should have left for already. They have a new place in prospect part neighborhood of mpls, really nice. We were over there for supper a couple of weeks ago.

To carry on the shaffner family tradition of playing the guitar, i got an acoustic left handed fender last weekend, along with a really cool COOL fender dvd on HOW TO PLAY. The sad thing is that i am so visual that i have to stop and rewind an enormous amount of times because i have problems getting it right. But finally, maybe i'll be able to hold my own at the campfire someday. Figure if i start with LOW songs i should be alright. AIGHT.

What else? MEA is coming up, which means i will be forcing myself to work on my thesis for 8 - 10 hours at the end of this week, which is a good thing (i'm trying to convince myself) because i have been avoiding it. It's the chapter two curse. I swear. It's really hard. And i don't always get things right away, so it took my a long time to understand the process. Problem with that was that i figured it out at the END of the summer, and that didn't leave me with much time. My other problem is that i can waste time really well.

Ok, CD CLUB members. Sorry to be so late. I'm working on the CD sleeve right now. It's a double CD SET, too, so maybe that will make up for being so late. Stephen just looks at me like you-should-be-done-you-started-this-thing all the time when i talk about it. Maybe he's right, but ... good things come to those who wait, no?

So that's it for now. I'll put some pictures from the garrison keillor street dance on sometime soon. Don't hold your breath for too long waiting, though. I don't seem to update as often as i think about it. Michelle =)

music

ohhhhh yeah.

so i'm ms september in regards to the cd club, just not quite done yet. almost. here's the line up...

september (past due): michelle
october: david e
november: tanuel l
december: amanda f
january: stephen g
february: todd h
march: jeremy n
april: paul g

turned out with eight... mine will be out (hopefully) by the end of the week, even though as i type that i don't know whether to believe myself. but i did spend some time on connect getting songs i didn't have yesterday. oh yeah. get high on bluegrass =)

chris got stephen and me tickets to the trey anastasio show at the orpheum next month. front row and center! thanks to chris for being the first at the box office, and thanks again for the good drinks on friday. i really fancy the imperial room, and it's even better now that it's smoke free. i'm sure that not everyone likes that, but when i don't go home smelling like shit and with a sore throat from second hand smoke, i'm all the better.

what else. took abbey to the water slides at the savage lifetime today. it's quite nice out there. i had forgotten that they have slides indoors, too. two days in a row at lifetime for the month of october. that's already a better start than september was. too much stress and too much foods in september, which is why my feet felt like lead at my exercise class on saturday morning. maybe it was the alcohol from the night before though... oh, and we had "family karoake" on saturday night! abbey even cued up my fav song to belt out... vanessa carlton's a thousand miles... what a girl =) you may not have heard it, but i think the neighbors did!