new job, accupuncture, and bbq

So yesterday at 1pm Jeff had an interview at the Moscow Coop for a deli position. At 5:30pm he got a call asking him if he could start today!!! That's some quick turnaround. He was especially shocked because they told him he wouldn't hear for a week. They must've liked him. He went in for a one hour traning session today, and for the next week he'll be shadowing people to learn how it all works there. He'll be working 28 hours/week until the end of October, then it can change up. Unfortunately until the end of October he'll be working Saturdays. But...that's ok. And he can get off the Saturday Dad and Kelly are in town. In any case, it all happened so fast that he's feeling a bit overwhelmed but mostly happy. AND, on Monday of next week he has an interview for the part time WSU job. It's possible, then, if he gets it that he could suddenly be working 48 hours/week. Yucky. He's thinking if he gets the WSU job (which is a big "if" since the job market on campus is so weird) he'll take it from there--possibly cutting back at the coop. But for now, job, working with food, good good.

I went to a chinese medicine doctor today and got accupuncture. It was wacky. I never had accupuncture under Marcie, so while a lot of the treatment was normal, the needles weren't. But it didn't hurt at all and was really relaxing. She also seemed to have a lot of insight into my health...things she just kind of figured out based on my pulses. Chinese medicine is crazy, and fascinating. Anyhow, I liked her a lot and am happy to have found her.

I went to get accupuncture in Moscow while Jeff did his coop traning part 1, then we hooked up and ended up getting dinner at Patty's Kitchen, which is a Mexican place in Moscow. On Wednesdays they have a bbq in the yard, so we decided to try it. Amazing ribs and beef tips. Yummmmm.

No longer full of needles, but full of meat, and watching America's Next Top Model, and soon to watch Project Runway. Yeah me.

Oh yeah, and that job thing is going ok too :) I really love my rhetoric students, they're awesome. Ok, off to tv land.

weekend in seattle (and a little bit sleepless)

We took off for Seattle on Friday around 2pm, after grabbing some nutritious Jack in the Box lunch. We had directions to Chris' place (Jokes' sister) that helped us avoid Seattle rush hour traffic, which was a good thing as we got to the Seattle area around 6pm. We didn't get to Chris' until around 6:45, but still, less than a 5 hour drive which is pretty great. Chris, her husband Steve, and their absurdly cute 2 year old daughter Lucy live in a north-eastern suburb of Seattle called Woodinville. Their house is in a great secluded area--it sort of feels like you're in Pointe Mills or something. We hung out for a bit, and then went with Jokes to dinner at a place called Lark in Capitol Hill (a neighborhood of Seattle). Great little place that Jeff found (of course) where we ate tapas style French type food. Very very yummy, but we had to wait to get seated for about an hour so we didn't get done eating until around 10:45pm, but still well worth it. It took about 35 minutes to get back to Chris where we slept poorly for whatever reason.

Saturday we got up and went to IKEA with Chris, Lucy, and Jokes. The store was way bigger than the one we had been to in Alexandria, VA. Jeff and I got all domestic and had a hard time not buying more than we had alloted. We ended up getting what we had planned: a TV stand, a nicer bookshelf, a utilitarian bookshelf, and then we also got a small TV stand for our bedroom TV and a few closet organizer things...oh, and a stuffed elephant for Lucy. It all fit in our car easily which was good. After IKEA we met Erica Lord at a Dim Sum restaurant (she works at Evergreen College now in Olympia, about an hour south of Seattle). Great lunch, good times. Erica had to get back to do work, so Jokes, Jeff and I headed into the city. We explored a big Asian grocery store next to the football stadium, then we went to the Capitol Hill neighborhood again and went record shopping, looked at some clothes, and watched people. We ended up in Ballard for dinner, another neighborhood. Very cool area. Great Mexican dinner, and amazing margaritas. Mmm. We headed back to Woodinville and partook of Chris and Steve's big ol' hottub. It was really relaxing. Then to sleep, where I didn't sleep well again for whatever reason. Lucy was coming down with a cold and was up a lot during the night being sad, so that might've been part it of. Can't complain about a free place to stay though!

Sunday we got up, headed to Bellvue for Indian lunch with Jokes, and then dropped her off at her brother's house. Got to see her nephews who are HUGE now (they're in 1st grade). One is super silly and very Jokinen, the other is super quiet. We then headed back to Pullman. It only took about 4.5 hours to get back. I was super duper tired and went to sleep at 9:30, got up at 8am. whew!

I had a TON of work to do today, going out of town is fun but getting behind is annoying. I was at school for about 10 hours, yuck. Oh well, I'll get caught up and Seattle was fun. Here's some silly pics:

the excellent hot tub and good beer (rogue dead guy ale, yum)


lucy on the phone (she will also dance to any music and yell "led zeplanin, led zeplanin" which is really really funny)


the millers in bad shadows. nice trees around their place.


the drive out of seattle, super duper beautiful


about 60 miles or so out of pullman, a barn with the ubiquitous "go cougs" slogan

rhetoric class

I really really like teaching my rhetoric class, and I really really don't like teaching my technical communication class--does this mean things even out? Rhetoric is fun, we get to look at all sorts of cool examples and talk about how arguments work/don't work. Tech comm is like stabbing my eye out with a fork. I need to find a way to hopefully never teach tech comm again, it's just so painful. Basically it feels like you're just teaching students formulas for creating effective texts in the workplace. I can see how that is pratical and valuable, but good lord it's boring. I need to get through 10 more weeks. 10. ugh.

I have a weird fuzzy feeling in my head today and I hope it's not a cold coming on, as we're headed to Seattle this weekend to visit jokes (who is visiting her sister). My students all had the stomach flu a few weeks ago, which I successfully avoided. Now they all seem to have colds, which I need to successfully avoid as well. Why are students so germy? Why can't I take a sauna to chase it off? Perhaps I need to go buy some whiskey. We've had no liquor in the house since we moved here, since we got rid of it all before we left and now we have to make an effort to go to the state-run liquor store, as they don't sell it anywhere else. Beer and wine are everywhere, but liquor not so much.

It's been cold and cloudy lately, odd weather to go from sunny and 95 to cloudy and 50. Next week looks warmer, this is good. 70s are where it's at.

football game

did i mention we went to the WSU/Idaho football game last weekend? we did. wsu whooped up on idaho, so it was actually kind of dull after the 1st half, but still fun. pics to prove:



if you look really closely, you'll see a football going through the goal posts. can you see it?

i'm watching wife swap. i don't know why. it's making me mad, there's a crazy man on who is a germophobe. cable is slowly going to rot my brain.

this weekend was good, we went to the moscow farmer's market and bought a bunch of yummy stuff (the best peaches ever). then we went to the latah county fair. i love fairs. we watched part of the livestock auction (see below) but we have no idea why some pigs went for $300 and others for $200...sometimes the fatter ones were cheaper. why?


we also saw the cutest baby goats ever. example:


then jeff posed for a picture:


it was a good day. we ended at a house in moscow for the head secretary in my dept retirement party. they had a fireplace and a leather couch, it made me lazy.

this weekend we're headed to seattle to visit jokes who will be visiting her sis for 10 days. it should be fun.

association for faculty women: a vestige of the past?

so i went to the first meeting of the year tonight for the association for faculty women, which i will now refer to as "the ol' girls network" and i'm not sure i mean that in a good way. i decided to go because, well, it seemed like a good idea and my friend jessica was going. but it was a really weird crew. it was full of 50-something profs who were all white liberal feminist from the 70s and 80s. don't get me wrong, these women fought hard for equal rights and equal pay and all that stuff that makes my life as a new prof pretty damn good. BUT... these women also seem to have created exactly what they were against. they were super cliquey, very macho, very braggy, very what i imagine the men were like that they were trying to be taken seriously by. and to be taken seriously by these men, they BECAME these men. they became super me-centered, and super exclusive, and very suit like. it was a weird place, and they weren't very welcoming, and it felt like to be one of them you had to bitch about "the man" and brag about your work, and that's just not my schtick. so yeah, no more afw for me. $12 for good appetizers and free wine though, so i lapped it up grad-student style.

i had a super long day today. went to the gym at 7am, then a new chiropracter at 9 (i miss kemmy and mischa!!!), then finshed grading papers which pained me. i'm pretty sure my students either don't care or don't listen to me or a little of both. then i worked at school on the seedlings of a possible new edited collection on feminism and new media, then i also worked on the seedlings of a new article, then the ol' girls network, now rockstar supernova. which is the best thing on tv and i'm sad it's the last week. but WAIT! there's project runway tomorrow. god bless cable.

still smokey around here, too many wildfires around these parts. my allergies are crappy today. yuck. i want clean air! it's supposed to rain later this week, here's hoping.