A Tale of Two Blisters

Almost two years ago, my mean running coach was away for a while, so I was walking at lunchtime nearly every weekday with my friend "C."  She and I walked a 5K route that I had discovered.  Every day as we were headed out, we would see my friend "J" from upstairs, walking back towards our building.

My brain, although primarily occupied with math, does think about other things sometimes.  I had long ago realized that C and J had a lot in common, and would probably make a good couple.  But, at that time they were both getting over painful breakups, and neither felt that they were ready to date.  Still, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce them to each other in a non-dating, no-pressure environment.

"You know that guy I wave at every day?" I said to C.  "He's one of my colleagues from upstairs.  He has lost more than 50 pounds since the beginning of the year.  I bet he would love to see our walking route.  Would you mind if I invited him along sometime?"

Not at all, said C, always a good sport.  So I talked to J, really hyping up the awesomeness that was our walking route, and he agreed to try it out for a change of pace.

Alas, the day the three of us were supposed to go walking, I had developed two enormous blisters on the soles of my feet, and was unable to walk such a long distance.  My socks were not wicking the sweat away from my feet sufficiently, and the rubbing had caused these two big blisters to develop on the balls of my feet.

"I'm sorry," I said to J, "but I will be unable to walk today.  But I'm sure C would be happy to show you the route!"  J replied that since he didn't know her, he wasn't comfortable walking with her.  Despite my assurances that she did not bite, he could not be persuaded.  "Oookay," I said.  "I probably won't be better until next week, but we'll do it then."

C came over to my office later that morning, and I told her about my blisters and what J had said.  "Let's solve that problem!" she said, and we walked upstairs and she introduced herself to him: "Hello, my name is C, now you know me and we can go walking today."

They went walking that day, and every day for the rest of the week while my sad blisters healed.  In that time, they got a chance to talk and get to know each other, and they really hit it off.  After my blisters healed, I bought some expensive moisture-wicking socks and walked with them for a few days.  Then I was away for almost two weeks, and at one point soon after that they went on their first date.

Their relationship continued to blossom and I learned recently that they got engaged!  I have never felt such happiness about blisters as I did when they told me -- I could not have purposefully contrived such a perfect setup.

Still, I think I will keep wearing the expensive socks.  I'll figure out another way to help people fall in love.

For ScienceGirl

Blogfriend ScienceGirl is about to embark upon a new journey in her life: she and her husband are about to have their first child! This exciting news is tempered by the fact that she and her husband have only recently moved to the place where they live, and don't have much of a network of friends yet. This means that they're not having a baby shower, and will have to depend mostly on themselves when the baby comes.

I unfortunately don't live close enough to help out (otherwise I'd be inviting myself to come help like I did for my sister et al. in December!), but at the suggestion of blogfriend EcoGeoFemme, we are holding a virtual baby shower/blog carnival for ScienceGirl. Hopefully our words of support will be good for something.

ScienceGirl, I'm privileged to know you not just through the internet but also in real life! I know that you will be an excellent mother and you probably don't need any of my help in doing so. Still, I hope that my experience will be of help to you. I would like to offer you two pieces of advice -- two themes, if you will, that have helped me make it through the journey of motherhood so far.

The first is "This, too, shall pass." The immense pain of childbirth? Lasts on the order of hours. The sleep deprivation? Doesn't last forever. The temper tantrums? They'll go away as she matures.

On the other hand, it's not just the bad things that pass. Before you know it, your Baby Girl will be sitting up, crawling, then walking. She'll become more and more independent with every passing day. And she'll be too big to cuddle in your lap before you know what happens. So you need to savor the moment -- watch her explore those new-found things called hands, enjoy the groans and sighs of ecstacy as she drinks that milk, and caress that soft, soft skin and those tiny little fingers.

There will be moments that you miss. I missed my son's first crawl, because I had to go to bed early so I could go to work. You may get jealous of her other caregivers, and this is understandable. But remember this: at the end of the day, nobody can compare to Mama. You will be loved by your daughter more purely, more fiercely, than she loves anyone else. Enjoy her, and your time with her, in the moment -- because this too shall pass.


The second thing I'd like to talk about is what it means to be a good parent. You don't try to get a Ph.D. in Science from a Prestigious Institution of Higher Learning if you're not ambitious and somewhat competitive. Making comparisons between yourself and others, and striving to be Better than others may work okay in an academic environment* -- but when it comes to parenthood, it does not. You will never be the Best Mother in the World; you can only strive to be the best mother you can be.

First, comparing your parenting, as measured by the outcome of your child's development, to others' will only serve to get you into trouble. "So-and-so's kid walked at 10 months, and mine had just started crawling then" -- so what? Different kids develop at different rates; one person's kid developing skills earlier than another's is not a referendum on their parenting skills, or on the quality of your child. Certainly, there's something to be concerned about if your child doesn't pick up these skills, but there is such a wide range of developmental curves, that in 99.9% of all cases, there's nothing to worry about.

Second, being overcritical of your own parenting actions is counterproductive. This is not to say that you should never examine your actions, or be critical of what you've done. But it is counterproductive to punish yourself over mistakes that you've made.

Examine your history and your behavior patterns, and know your vulnerabilities. For example, I tend to yell out of anger, because that's how I was brought up. Do your best not to be triggered into doing the undesirable behaviors by learning what it is that pushes that button. (In my case, it's when I am drawn into a battle of wills -- plus sleep deprivation, stress, hunger, etc.) Then, avoid getting into that situation. (I try to redirect rather than directly confront disobedience -- with the exception of immediate dangers like running out into the street -- which works much better than imposing my will on him ever could. I also try to keep myself healthy to avoid the second set of triggers.)

You won't always succeed. I have barked at my son more times than I would have liked, but it's okay. I've transformed those situations from failures to learning experiences by figuring out what triggered me, how I can avoid that situation in the future, and (most importantly) apologizing to my son for my unacceptable behavior. Our children use us as role models, and modeling grace and humility in the face of a mistake is one of the best ways we can help them deal with their own inevitable mistakes and frustrations.

But love yourself enough to know that even in that dark moment, you had only the best of intentions. Create a plan of action, forgive yourself, and move on. Get some help (from family and friends, or from an expert) if you need it. Just believe in yourself confidently enough to know that you are growing and maturing even as an adult, and that you are and will continue to mature into the best parent you can be.

ScienceGirl, I am so happy for you and I'm looking forward to someday meeting your little one. Please know that I'll be thinking positive thoughts in your general direction as you get adjusted to life as a mother, and that I'm only a phone call away.


* I find this assertion debatable, but that is a subject for another post.

Happy Birthday, Vinny!

Today is Vinny's third birthday! It is hard to believe that it's been three years since he was born. On the one hand, it feels like it was just yesterday that he was an itty-bitty baby. On the other hand, I almost can't remember what my life was like before he came into it.

Since he doesn't really know the difference between one day or another, we're celebrating throughout the month. His first celebration was when we visited Alice, my former babysitter (as in, she used to babysit me when I was a child), and her husband, in northwestern Missouri on Friday and Saturday, and she baked him a cake, complete with his favorite obsession (windmills) on it -- see the following pictures.




Alice got some small fans on clearance and put them on the cake to look like windmills. (She also bought him some bigger hand-held fans on clearance and gave them to him as a birthday present, and he played with them all the way home from Missouri. The buzzing sound was irritating, but much better than whining might have been.)

After I get back from a business trip this week (yup, I'm leaving tomorrow, and coming back on Thursday), we'll have a family celebration. And then we'll hold a birthday party later this month.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Our friends Adam and Jody came over for Thanksgiving dinner. We made a goose rather than a turkey, which was interesting, but I think maybe next time we'll go for something more traditional.

The dinner menu included the aforementioned goose, giblet gravy made from said goose, apple-raisin stuffing, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, sweet potato patties, broccoli casserole, corn, rolls (that turned out more like hard tack for some reason; where have my breadmaking abilities gone?!), cranberry sauce, apricot sauce, Jody's grandmother's stuffing, and banana pudding, pumpkin pie, and brownies for dessert.

It was a feast of magnificent proportions. The food was good overall, even if the rolls were pretty bad. I was actually pleased by our gravy. I had never had much success making gravy, but this recipe (from The Joy of Cooking) was easy to follow and worked out really well. I really liked Jody's grandmother's stuffing recipe. It was delicious.

We had a good, low-key Thanksgiving, and I'm really glad that we could share it with our friends.

National Coming Out Day!

I didn't realize it until this morning, but today is National Coming Out Day! So, Happy Coming Out Day to all my GLBT friends and loved ones!

In case it wasn't already obvious, I support my friends and loved ones of all sexual orientations, gender identities, ages, races, shapes, sizes, religious persuasions, national origins, handedness, eye colors, etc. But I figured that today would be a good day to come out explicitly as a GLBT ally.

Half of my first family, excluding myself, is gay. My situation is somewhat unique, in that one of my parents is gay, and before she figured that one out, she spent more than 35 years married to my dad and had three wonderful daughters. I'm glad that she eventually figured it out and found the woman of her dreams. Overall, we're all much happier now that we've adjusted to our new-found places, although getting there was rather traumatic.

So I'm really glad that my sister was able, whether through simple self-awareness or because society is much more tolerant now, to find the woman of her dreams without having to go through the unhappiness of being with the wrong person for two-thirds of her life!

There are other GLBT people outside of my family whose existence has impacted me in such a positive way that I can't even imagine life without them! This world would be a lonely place without them. So I thought I'd give a brief tribute to two of them, going in chronological order.

The first was a friend of my older sister's… let's call him Maury, for the sake of argument ;)

Maury was two years ahead of me in school. He went to the same high school as Rachel, which was a different school from the one I went to, but he was also in the youth orchestra with me and Rachel. He came over to our house fairly often when Rachel was a senior. He had outstanding taste in music, I remember, introducing us to Poulenc, and most importantly, me to opera. He had the CDs of Carmen, sung by Maria Callas, and Carmen ended up being something I grew quite fond of. After Rachel graduated and went on to college, for some reason he still liked the rest of the family enough to come and hang out at our house. I went to a play and maybe a couple of concerts with him his senior year of high school. Then he went off to college, although he would still stop by during breaks. But I don't think I've seen him in over ten years, although Rachel still keeps up with him somewhat.

Maury really opened me up to some music I never would have heard of, had it not been for him, and to opera, which was not well-liked in my first family for some reason. But I have to admit, Jeff and I own three CD sets of complete operas: Carmen (with Callas), Don Giovanni (with Samuel Ramey), and L'Elisir d'Amore (with Pavarotti). Maury would probably think this is insufficient, and I would agree with him, except that CD sets of operas are expensive! So, Maury, if you're reading, I would gladly take donations of operas! :)

The second GLBT person I'm going to write about was not a close friend. It was somebody whom I knew in Illinois. This person was a man when we first met, and transitioned into a woman by about a year before I left.

I met "Dan" early in my graduate career. He was a staff member at the university. He was short, and sleight of build, with glasses, kind of a squeaky voice, and a long blond ponytail. As we interacted I had no idea that he felt that there was a mismatch between his body and his mental image of himself.

I didn't see him much for several years, so I had no idea that he was doing hormone replacement or anything. We interacted via computer, on newsgroups, so I never saw any changes. As the time came closer, he started hinting on the newsgroups about a big change that was happening to him, and I soon figured out that he was about to become a she.

Some religiously conservative people on the newsgroups were less than charitable in their reactions. They called Dan a sick person with a mental illness, condemned him to hell, and even threatened him. But Dan prevailed and became "Cherise," getting an official name change, a new driver's license and even a new user ID from the university. (The new user ID was probably the hardest one of those to obtain. They never did it for women who changed their names when they got married, so I don't know how she did it, quite honestly!)

I visited her in the same old office I'd been to before. It was a little strange to call this person I knew Cherise instead of Dan, but really it was not any stranger than calling women I've known my whole life by their new married name, or calling a friend of mine who changed her entire name by that new name. This change of identity didn't threaten my ideas of gender roles or anything, seeing as I don't really conform to gender roles myself. And I noticed that Cherise had better hair than I did, so I asked her for her secret. We remained friends until I left. I tried to see her when I was back in Illinois in August, but she was out of the office when I stopped by.

I admire Cherise for her ability to be herself, no matter what others said. Her parents were pretty displeased at their son becoming a woman, and I'm not sure what kind of relationship they have today. Her courage inspires me to be true to myself, and I'm glad that I know her. If she can face down that kind of opposition, then I can face anything that life gives me!

Anyhow, I'm grateful for what the people I've met of all sexual orientations and gender identities have shared with me. Happy Coming Out Day!

Becca's Cake Bakery

It was a normal Friday night for most people -- except for me, Jeff, Vinny, Jody, and Adam. You see, we were all preparing for Vinny's birthday fiesta.

I planned to bake some gluten-free, egg-free cupcakes for my 365-day-old son, and a cake shaped like a sombrero for the guests at the party. I started with the cupcakes.

This is a picture of the ingredients I used to make the cupcakes. On the far right we have the gluten-free cake mix that I bought in Lexington at the Good Foods Coop. It called for 2 eggs, 1/2 c. oil, and 1 c. water. I looked on my favorite baby food website and found out that sunflower oil is one of the least allergenic cooking oils, so I bought some sunflower oil for this cake. Unfortunately, my mother is allergic to eggs, so I went with Ener-G egg replacer (also purchased at the Good Foods Coop) instead of real eggs.


If you ever wondered what egg replacer looked like when you mixed the powder with water, then this picture is for you! It gets kind of foamy. I've used egg replacer in a lot of baked goods, (such as my famous cranberry bread) and it results in a crunchier crust but otherwise the bread is just as tasty as it is when made with eggs. I was curious how the egg replacer would impact the gluten-free cake mix.


I mixed it all up in my mixer, and I was pretty surprised by how runny the batter was (as you can see in the picture). But actually, that made it fairly easy to fill the muffin cups. I ended up with a total of 21 cupcakes (good thing I have two muffin tins!).

The following two pictures are the before and after baking photos. I baked them at 350 F for about 15 minutes. They looked pretty nice -- a nice golden color, and a moist texture.



After I finished baking those cupcakes, I took a break and talked to my better half and Adam and Jody, who were busily preparing salsa.



Vinny was sitting in his high chair, waiting patiently for us to pay attention to him. (Okay, not actually waiting so patiently.) But soon Granny and Granddad arrived, and paid more attention to him than he had ever thought possible, so I think it worked out okay.

Then, it was time for me to start on the sombrero cake. I decided to try the buttermilk cake recipe from The Joy of Cooking. Here are my ingredients (not pictured: vanilla, baking powder, and other uninteresting ingredients):


(Sorry for the blur. I forgot to use the flash.) I tried cake flour to make the cake for my in-laws' anniversary party, and ever since then I have been sold on it when it comes to cake-baking. I used real butter for the cake, too.

Next I sifted my flour and other dry ingredients, before creaming the sugar and butter, beating the three eggs, and then mixing everything together into the cake batter.



After I got the batter all made, I put it into three different baking dishes (pre-sprayed with Pam Baking Spray -- that stuff works better than I can ever hope to do with greasing and flouring pans) to bake. The following image is big so that you can see what I did. I had a normal cake pan, which I used to make a thin layer that was the brim of the sombrero. (It's sitting on top of a big mixing bowl, in case you're wondering.) Then I have two Anchor-Hocking bowls, one medium-sized (1.5 qt), and one small (1 qt), that I would stack up to make the part of the sombrero that goes over your head. I'd say I put nearly equal amounts of batter in each bowl, with slightly more going into the medium-sized bowl.


I baked the three pieces in the oven at 350 F. I don't know how long I baked them, because I forgot to check the time when I put them in, so I had to just keep an eye on them. But I can tell you that the cake pan came out first, followed by the smaller bowl and finally the bigger bowl. Here are some pictures of them after they came out:


I waited a few hours for them to cool, and then, at about midnight, I began making the frosting. It's just your average powdered-sugar/butter/milk/vanilla frosting, from The Joy of Cooking once again!


I started off by frosting the top of the sombrero brim, in order to stick the hat part on top.


Then I put the first hat layer on it, frosted the top of that, and then added the top layer.


Then I frosted the whole thing using most of frosting, but luckily there was still some left over for what I wanted to do to decorate the cake.


I had some M&M's (plain and peanut), some star sprinkles, and some food coloring. I colored the top of the cake yellow, put a blue rim around the top, and a red rim around the brim of the sombrero. Then I decorated it with M&M's: peanut M&M's around the bottom of the brim (like pompoms), and plain M&M's on the hat itself.



Now for some pictures of the final result:


I was pleased by the result. I am not the world's best cake icer, but the decorations mostly hid my deficiencies. If I had it to do all over again, I'd buy some tubes of colored decorating frosting and use that for the colored ribbons instead.

Visitors and More Visitors

On Tuesday night, my cousin Elizabeth spent the night, on her way from North Carolina to Minnesota. She had been living in NC but she's moving back to Minnesota again. She arrived kind of late but we had dinner ready soon after she got here. Then in the morning I made her some pancakes (because if you stay with me, you get a pancake breakfast, that's just how things go) and we had a leisurely breakfast before she took off again, this time for Evansville to spend the night at Grandma's (that's my dad's mother, not my mom's mother who we visited this past weekend).

I hadn't seen her since our baby shower over a year ago, when she was living in Kentucky. She appeared to be well and in good spirits, and happy to be returning to Minnesota (where she did her undergraduate degree and where her boyfriend lives). I was glad that we were on the route for her move.

This weekend, both sets of grandparents are coming down for Vinny's birthday bash. In honor of the fact that his favorite food is refried beans, we are having a birthday fiesta. His Tia Jody is making Mexican food for his party, to which we have invited a lot of people from the area in addition to our immediate family. I've ordered a sheet cake, and in addition, I am baking a sombrero-shaped cake for the party. I will try to take some pictures as I make it, and show them to you, my vast blog audience!

This Day in History

On this day two years ago, I defended my dissertation!

It was a very hot day in Illinois, unusually hot for June. Jeff, Dad, Marvis, and Laura were in the audience. I brought all kinds of treats for the committee and the rest of the audience, including pirozhkis specially baked by the nice Russian lady at the Farmer's Market. My dad was the only person to ask a question before the committee kicked out the audience to grill me in private. They didn't actually ask me any really hard questions or anything. I did have to show one committee member where a certain proof was within the dissertation, and then they asked me to add a section with some more results at the end, which I dutifully did.

That evening, we all went out to dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousins as a family celebration, and then the next day I had a huge party, to which I invited basically everyone whom I knew and could tolerate, although with the exception of a few relatives and my parents-in-law and a friend from way back when, it was mostly just locals who attended. I held it at a city park on a lake, and my guests got to paddle on the lake in canoes and paddleboats. In addition, I had a sheet cake saying "Congratulations, Dr. Rebecca!" on it. The invite list, the location, and the cake were the only requirements I had for my party. It was a lot of fun to celebrate the accomplishment of a lifetime with my friends and family.

Of course life carries on even after you've accomplished something wonderful. Unlike a book, which would have spent maybe a few more pages summing things up, or a movie, which probably would have cut to credits right after the party, in real life this was just one event in the course of time. Since then we have moved to a new state, I started an actual job, and we had a baby, amongst other things. But that was still a great two days and it felt like such a relief to finally be done with school, even if it only meant I was moving on to something else.

Fun with Friends

On Saturday, Vinny and I went over to my colleague's house to meet his nine-week-old son. We had a good time. Vinny got to play with some of the toys they had that were for babies older than their son, and I got to hold the baby. He's a cute little dude and took well to me even though I was a stranger.

I also passed along a bunch of baby clothes that Vinny had outgrown. I kept some of my favorite of his clothes, but I was able to give away most of them without feeling too nostalgic about it.

It's amazing the contrast between a nine-week-old and an eight-month-old baby! It's also kind of hard to believe that Vinny was that small and inactive. Vinny stole the show. He was funny, active, and cheerful, and he giggled and smiled a lot while we were there. After we got home, however, he was superbly cranktastic, having evidently used up all his cheerfulness and charm at my colleague's house!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is my first Mother's Day as a mother (although we did celebrate it last year, when I was pregnant). We celebrated it a little early. We went out to dinner with our friends Adam and Jody last night, at a restaurant that we'd heard about but never been to before. It was called the Copper Cellar and it was a kind of cozy place in a basement near the campus of UT. The food was delicious and we all had a good time. Vinny sat on a portable high chair that fits onto a chair, which had previously belonged to his cousin Byron.

For Mother's Day I also got a book that I had requested, Parenting Beyond Belief. I haven't finished reading it yet, but so far it is very interesting and it has given me some good ideas. I'll try to post a review of it whenever I finally finish it.

This was the best Mother's Day I've had in a long time, I guess primarily because I was able to shift the focus to celebrating myself as a mother. And I think that so far, I've done a pretty good job as a mother. Not perfect, of course, but I have a happy, healthy, thriving son and that is nothing to complain about. I'm definitely meeting the level of success that I wanted: I am the best second-rate mother in the world!

Weekend Fun

This past weekend, Dad and Marvis stopped in for a visit. They were on their way to the beach for Spring Break, but stopped in to see their youngest grandchild (and their daughter and son-in-law too). They arrived on Saturday afternoon and left on Monday morning. Saturday evening we invited our friends Adam and Jody to join us for dinner, so they could meet each other. Jody brought her world-famous chips and salsa. Jeff made Italian roasted pork loin, red potatoes with rosemary, salad, and glazed carrots, and I made cornbread. For dessert we had strawberries and ice cream. We moved our dining room table outside, and ate on our deck.

On Sunday, we had planned to go to the Smokies, but it was raining so instead we went to the American Museum of Science and Energy, right here in town. I visited it once when I was a teenager, but hadn't been back since, so it was good to go to it again. I enjoyed the museum and I think it's a great resource to have here in town as Vinny grows up.

Vinny was his usual charming self and his grandparents oohed and aahed over him, and fought to get the chance to hold him, feed him, and even change his diaper. As far as I'm concerned, that's great! I've changed plenty of diapers and I don't feel deprived about forgoing the pleasure in favor of his grandparents.

I left for work early Monday morning before Dad and Marvis got up, but I think they were sad to leave, and looking forward to their next visit with their grandson.

Thanksgiving

We had a good Thanksgiving. We were going to make our own Thanksgiving dinner but then our neighbor invited us to Thanksgiving dinner with her and her daughter, son-in-law, and their kids; and her son, visiting from Atlanta. We had been over to their place a few weeks ago for dinner, and they were pretty nice, so we accepted. I brought rolls, since, as I indicated before, I really enjoy baking rolls. The dinner was delicious, and the company was very nice.

The next-door neighbor is friends with two of my colleagues at work. Her husband was their softball coach or something like that. She's also a lawyer, and whenever we get around to it, we're going to have her make up our will.

As it turns out, it was a good thing we went over to the neighbor's, or we might not have had any turkey at all, because our turkey was still frozen as of yesterday (despite being in the fridge thawing since Monday).

Busy B

I've had a busy week. Last week, I worked really hard at work. Then, on Friday, Laura came for a weekend visit. As a gift for Vinny, she came to help me sew for his nursery. It was a big help because thanks to my medial epicondylitis, I really can't do much sewing by hand. So we did the pieces that would require the most hand sewing first: the blanket and bumper. Thanks to Laura's excellent sewing skills, we finished both of those pieces. She also cut out all the pieces for all the other nursery pieces: the curtains, the valance, and the crib caddy. That was a big help because it's now a little bit hard for me to get on the floor, much less get up from the floor. So it's nice that all these pieces are ready for me to sew whenever I get to it.

The nursery theme is tropical fish. I looked at all the nursery themes at the store but was unhappy with them, so I decided to make my own instead. I found some great tropical fish fabric on the internet and went from there. The cost of the nursery is comparable to if we'd bought a set at the store, but it's more what we want. Plus it's made with love, so it's got to be better, right? :)

In addition to sewing, we also managed to talk a lot and have a good time. We took some time out to have fun, like going to what is the best Thai restaurant in East Tennessee, according to a friend of mine; eating delicious Mexican food cooked by Jody and delicious manicotti made by Jeff; and seeing a few sights around town. She also was kind enough to clean our gutters. I told her to come back any time!!!

I took Laura to the bus station early Monday morning, and then returned home and went back to bed. Then in the afternoon I went to the doctor because I was a little worried about the sudden swelling in my feet, hands, and face that I had developed. As it turns out, I'm just fine, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia.

Today, they held a baby shower for me and Jeff at work. As part of the celebration, Jeff got to come to the shower. Since he had a visitor's pass that was good for the entire day, he just came to work with me and read while I worked. I took him to lunch to experience the disgusting cafeteria food, and after lunch we went to an awards ceremony during which my boss got an award for being a good mentor. I was not the one who nominated him for the award (it was a summer student), but I definitely think he is a very good boss and I can understand why the student nominated him.

The baby shower was at 2:00. Lois, our department secretary, was the one who organized it. She had evidently been listening to me when I babbled to her about the baby, because the shower theme was tropical fish, with a cake decorated with tropical fish, paper plates shaped like tropical fish, and a tropical fish tablecloth. All the attendees, except for one woman from upstairs, Lois, and myself, were men, and in fact some of them said it was the first baby shower they'd ever been to. Lois said they had to play one shower game, so she had a list of baby-related words that they had to unscramble, and whoever got the most in three minutes won a prize.

I think everybody got together and gave Lois a bunch of money and she went and bought a bunch of gifts for us. There was a lot of stuff, and it was really great. In addition, my boss gave us a gift card, which was really nice of him.

It made me feel really good to know that all those people cared enough about me to chip in for this baby shower. I haven't been here quite a year yet but I have made a lot of friends and put down some roots. I am always surprised to (re)discover that people really seem to like me, and today I was pleasantly reminded that I am not as unlikeable as I appear to myself.

Showered with Love

Yesterday Jeff and I went to a baby shower in our honor that was hosted by fearless relatives Ginger, Rhonda, and Liz, at the home of some of Jeff's cousins. We drove up to Kentucky on Friday night, spending the night with Dad and Marvis before continuing on to the shower the next day.

The shower was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of relatives and friends that we hadn't seen in a long time, including Jeff's Aunt Mary and Uncle Wayne, who drove all the way up from Harlan; my cousin Elizabeth, a journalist temporarily assigned to work in Louisville; and my high school friends Carrie, Tabitha, and Chris, and Tabitha and Chris' daughter Samantha, whom I met for the first time.

There were more people there than I could count, but I would still say that it was a finite number, definitely less than 100, and probably under 50. I'm not the world's most outgoing person, so the sheer numbers of people and the resulting loudness was a bit much, but I tried not to let it overwhelm me.

Ginger came up with some wonderful games, including one where the object was to make as many words as you can from the letters of the baby's name. Thanks to the very long name that we have chosen for him and Ginger's word and spelling abilities, she came up with over 150 words that were contained in his name! She showed me her list, and the one that made me laugh the hardest was "tirade." If he inherits anything from either of his parents, we're going to hear a lot of those in the future!

Jeff made a very clever movie trailer about our baby, using his Father's Day gift video camera and the awesome software that comes standard on a Mac, and burned it onto a DVD. He gave one copy to Dad and Marvis, and another copy to his parents. But he also showed it at the baby shower. I can't really describe it without completely giving it away, and I want two of my fans to see it and enjoy it (I'm thinking of you, Rachel and Laura!) so I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say that the movie generated a lot of laughs and people really got a kick out of it.

Of course we also opened lots of gifts. Mostly we got stuff that we had registered for, but highlights from off the list include an afghan handmade by Jeff's mom, a UK outfit to counteract the UT onesie Jeff sacrilegiously bought for our son, and a hat handmade by bonus sister Vaughan. In total, we came out of there with a lot of loot. My dad used his packing SUPERPOWERS to fill every single nook and cranny in the trunk of our car, while dad-in-law and John Rice used their talents to fill the back seat, and by defying the Pauli Exclusion Principle, they fit all of it into the car.

I mustn't forget the amazing cake, brought by Rhonda. I am so bad about taking pictures and now I wish I had one of the cake, because it is hard to describe. It was a beautifully decorated cake with the baby's name, blocks with his initials, and two baby booties made of frosting. Under the icing, half of the cake was chocolate and the other half was white cake. The cake was specially ordered from a particular bakery in Winchester and it was really outstandingly decorated, and delicious too!

We drove home after the shower and got in just before midnight, because today we are going out to dinner with some friends. A graduate school classmate of mine, his wife, and their one-year-old son are in town visiting his parents, and they graciously agreed to take some time away from the family to see us. He currently works at Sandia but because of the dire financial situation there is looking for a job after his term of employment ends. He's interested in working here, because this is the happening place, evidently. No, seriously, national labs have their ups and downs, and right now Oak Ridge is on the upturn, while Sandia is on the decline. Ten years ago, ORNL wasn't such a great place for computational science, but now, we are becoming the center for leadership computing, we have attracted great people from elsewhere, and more and more money keeps flowing in. So I seem to be in the right place at the right time.

Busy Week

In addition to our anniversary on Tuesday, Jeff and I were out and about the next two evenings as well. A former classmate of mine and fellow student of my advisor was in town for a meeting, so we went out to eat with her on Wednesday night. She works at Argonne National Lab, and she graduated about five years or so before I did. She has two kids already and is pregnant with her third. She and I are due at nearly the same time! So Jeff enjoyed going out with two pregnant ladies. (Oh, the intrigue! Which one is his? Or are they both his?) We had a lot of fun talking with her. I asked her a lot of questions about the logistics of working and having a baby to take care of. She was happy to give me all kinds of advice. I'd say that she's the closest to a role model that I have these days. She shows that you can have kids and a successful career.

Then on Thursday, we had our first baby class, "Drool Time." Unfortunately, the class did not give me a chance to show off my drooling superpowers. In fact, no drooling was involved. If it had been, though, they would have all been terribly impressed by the sheer volume of drool that I produce. I have been told by dentists in three states that I produce more saliva than anyone they'd ever seen.

Seriously, though, "Drool Time" was an informative class. We learned a lot about baby care, such as how to bathe a newborn baby, and how to know when babies are sick. We have several more baby classes next month.

Speaking of baby, I had a checkup on Thursday, and the doctor said that he's doing just fine in there. At this rate of growth, we should have ourselves an eight-pounder, assuming he's born full-term. That baby is a busy little critter. One thing he enjoys doing is stretching out his legs. It feels kind of weird but it doesn't really hurt when he does that. I can see part of my belly rise slowly. It's kind of creepy but cool. Another trick he's developed is to backfist the uterus, BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM, really fast. That also feels weird but I think the leg stretching is weirder.

Neighborhood Block Party

On Friday evening, our neighborhood held a block party. Each family had to bring a main dish and a side dish to share. Jeff made some fried chicken strips breaded with his secret recipe. I made a Texas sheet cake (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting). Jeff's chicken was a big hit, and my cake wasn't too unpopular, either.

We met a lot of neighbors and it was a lot of fun. Our neighborhood has a lot of people of different ages: we sat next to a woman who has lived here for 45 years, and there was a 2.5-week-old baby in attendance too.

The police department sent out their neighborhood watch coordinator to talk to us about starting a neighborhood watch. Apparently there's a bit of a drug problem in town, which is what probably motivated the thefts that we had a few months ago. We got some brochures about keeping our house and neighborhood safe, and neighborhood watch stickers. We should be getting a neighborhood watch sign soon, too.

Our neighborhood is amazing. Apparently there has been this annual party for 30+ years. Everybody knows everybody else in the neighborhood, so we are one step ahead of some of the city's neighborhoods. I really like our house and neighborhood. It's nice because everyone is so friendly and they all look after each other. On the other hand, we have a lot more privacy than we did at our house in Illinois, because our houses are farther apart, and we have no backdoor neighbors (unless you count the people hundreds of feet down the hill). I think we picked a really good place to live.

The Past Week's Activities

Last Saturday, we helped our friends move into their new apartment. They drove down from Maryland with a big moving truck full of their furniture and belongings. I didn't move any of the heavy stuff but I did carry in a few boxes and bags. That evening, we took them out to eat at a restaurant that we had been to when we were house-hunting but had until recently been unable to find again.

On Monday, it was "Celebrate Women in Science" day at the lab, and in honor of that fact we had a plenary speaker and a poster session. As the only woman in my department, I made a poster for this poster session. My poster was about dynamic load balancing, which is what I'm working on these days. Then, in the evening, we went out to dinner with our newly-moved-in friends.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, until Saturday, when we went on a day trip to the Smokies. We visited Gatlinburg, where we had a pancake lunch, and Cherokee, NC. The mountains are just beautiful and green. We got home after 8 p.m.

Adventures in Gubmint

This week, I went to the DC-area to participate in a panel evaluating proposals solicited by the Department of Energy. It was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, so I didn't really know what to expect. I learned a lot, most of it related to the proposal writing and evaluation process.

The first thing I learned was to never, ever connect through Newark. If you have to change terminals (as I did), you have to leave the secure area and go back through security again. I had an hour layover and thanks to the metal rivets on my clothes, I got personally searched and nearly missed my flight.

But I didn't miss the flight, and made it to the hotel where I was staying and where the panel was, by 8 p.m. Just in time to see my colleague, who was on the Tuesday panel (I was on the Wednesday panel), leaving for dinner. So I caught up with him and another colleague who turned out to also be on the Wednesday panel, and we all went out to dinner together.

The next morning was the panel. The first proposal on the table was one of the three that I reviewed. The DOE program manager knew that I'd never done this before, so instead of having me go first, he asked one of the other reviewers to talk about the proposal. After that I was able to chime in with my comments about the proposal. Basically there was fifteen minutes allotted to each proposal, and the three people who had reviewed that proposal gave overviews of the proposal. Everyone else was welcome to ask questions and make comments too. I didn't talk much at all, except during the time allotted to each of the proposals I reviewed. Mostly I just listened and tried to absorb what people were saying. Obviously the review is supposed to be confidential so I can't say much more than that about it. I can say, however, that they kept us well-fed throughout the day, which was nice. My friend on the Tuesday panel said that the lunch they served on Tuesday had shrimp, but ours didn't have anything nearly so fancy. Good thing we were the last panel of reviewers; otherwise, today's panel might have been served peanut butter and jelly!

After the panel was over, I went out to eat with a friend from our undergraduate days and his wife. This is the same friend who was here in February, interviewing. It turns out that he was offered a job, and they decided to accept it and move to Oak Ridge! And he starts at the beginning of May! I was really excited to hear the news, and didn't feel too bad when the evening was over, knowing that we'd soon be seeing them here!

I am insane, so I booked a flight leaving at 6:45 a.m. this morning. That meant I had to get up at 4 a.m. Luckily for me, the colleague who was also on the Wednesday panel decided to accompany me in my rental car back to the airport. This helped keep me awake, plus he was able to help with directions, so I didn't have to rely on my foggy, directionally-challenged brain. I made it back home without incident, this time going through Cleveland rather than Newark. Upon arriving home, I took a nap before eating some lunch and making my way to work.

At work we have a frantic schedule at the moment; we've suddenly learned that we are supposed to benchmark our code on one of the leadership-level supercomputers by Tuesday. This code is a work in progress and has not yet been ported to any large-scale machine, so this poses quite a challenge. At the moment we're having trouble getting it to compile on that machine, because the compiler doesn't like the way we use templates. Luckily that is not my part of the job at the moment; right now I'm supposed to be writing a benchmarking code that records the timings of each of the operators in the code (e.g. multiplication, addition, etc.). I still have to finish that. Unfortunately, by being on that panel, I've missed a day and a half of time that could have been spent working on this. But I think the knowledge I have gotten from serving on that panel made the trip worthwhile.