Random bullets of September

I accomplished an amazing number and quantity of things today, but of course it wasn’t enough.  And now I’m supposed to be grading, so instead I’m blogging, random-bullets style.

• I had a lovely happy hour on Friday with Lisa V, who introduced me to a bunch of other moms I should know.  Lisa and I met on the Internet, of course, over at Phantom Scribbler’s place, though occasionally we tell people it was on Craigslist via “Casual Encounters.”  There are many good things about living in Boise, and Lisa is near the top of that list.
• There are also many things about Boise that need improving.  Number one on my list: grocery stores.  I’ll have a post forthcoming on that soon.  If this whole tenure-track thing doesn’t pan out, I may open a grocery store or deli, as Boise is desperately in need of a fabulous example of each.  (Seriously: my favorite deli in Davis was in a grocery store. One of their regular sandwiches featured sauteed Granny Smith apples, brie, and whole-grain mustard on a roll baked on site. For $5.49. Sorry, Jimmy John’s–the white roll and shredded iceberg lettuce gooped with mayo aren’t cutting it for me.) I’ve been trying to approach all this mediocre food as “exotic flyover state cuisine,” but that’s just not working for me anymore.  Those of you who know me well will be shocked at this: I haven’t had Thai food for months because the stuff here just doesn’t compare to California Thai.
• I’m in that magical place where I have two journal articles and one book chapter (for an edited volume) out for review.  As tenure at this place apparently consists of three good articles, service, and good teaching, one of my colleagues said to me, “Well, you can stop working now!”  Instead I’m grading papers, trying to get undergrads in a lower-division survey course to see the charms of Historiann’s Abraham in Arms (it has many!), giving a presentation tomorrow about having my grad students create mobile public history projects, reading another new-to-me book before my undergrad public history class on Tuesday, bringing snacks for kindergarten tomorrow, grading a set of papers, scheduling guest speakers for my class, finding internships for those last three students before the registration deadline, gnawing my fingernails over the distance between now and payday, helping Fang learn Omeka, and trying to figure out how, really, one best introduces one’s beloved dead grandmother’s everyday stainless into one’s own silverware drawers with more love than pain. And that’s just this week. Perhaps it’s all a bit too much?
• Next semester I’m teaching an upper-division seminar called “Women in the West.” Anyone have suggestions for readings? I’m trying to look beyond pioneer women, and I have the California Gold Rush covered pretty well. Multiculturalism, urbanism, and the twentieth century are particularly welcome.  I’m doing pretty well with Asian Americans and Native Americans. I could use some suggestions for African Americans (I have a nice piece on Biddy Mason, but not much else) and the Chicana/Latina experience.
• The trees in my front yard have cast off a few leaves. They only finally leafed out in June, so I figure they owe me leafiness until at least late November, yes?  (Where I grew up, the trees that did lose their leaves lost them between Thanksgiving and Christmas and blossomed no later than February.  Is five months of foliage really too much to ask?)
• Lucas is getting cranky.  I’m hoping we can chalk it up to his new molars coming in and his going to a new, albeit awesome, school–and not just the Reality of Being Six.

What’s up with you?  Feel free to leave your own random bullets in the comments.