Light and Momentary

Soup Season

Do you like beef-barley soup? I am very fond of beef-barley soup.

We had a little bit of leftover stew beef in the fridge tonight, and I browned it in oil with the Instant Pot in sauté mode. I minced an onion and two ribs of celery, and diced two fat carrots into small cubes. When I pulled the browned beef cubes out of the pot, I tossed in the veggies, salted them, and let them get brown. We had a couple of sad little deliquescing leeks in the veggie drawer, so I chopped them up as well and added them to the pot. In other circumstances I would have thrown in a few cloves of garlic instead.

To the browned veggies I added a glass of wine, about 6 cups of stock, a small can of crushed tomatoes, a cup or so of quick barley, and the resting beef cubes along with their liquid. I cooked it under pressure for 12 minutes and let it rest for a little longer after the timer went off. It needed a bit more umami, so I added some Worcestershire sauce. If I were a mushroom eater, I might have chucked in some mushrooms along with the other vegetables to provide a little umami boost. 

We all liked it; maybe you will too.

The Klaxon

When we are out of something important at our house we sound the alarm. The person who picks up the almost-empty bag of coffee beans or the last bagel will say "WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP!" 

My husband, who does the grocery shopping, will answer: "What do we need now?"

We do have a whiteboard grocery list, but if the situation is serious you're going to WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP about it.

Today I said to Elwood, "Do we have any pumpkin?" I had thought I might make some nice pumpkin/chocolate chip muffins, but that's hard to do without pumpkin.

He frowned. "I don't think so. Was it on the list?"

"Well, no," I answered. "But I whooped about it." You can't have a pantry without pumpkin in October, right?

"It was probably ten days ago," I continued. "It seems like usually if someone whoops about a grocery emergency you'll practically vault out the door to get the thing we're out of."

He nodded sagely. "To stop the whooping," he explained.

Who knew that WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP noises would be so motivating? Life is full of surprises, my friends.

Bulky

If you are a woman my age you were probably cautioned about the weight room. "Careful," they told you, "you don't want to get bulky." This was said with a twist of the lip and a cautionary tone. You don't want to get gangrene. You don't want to get syphilis. You don't want to get bulky.

The weather has changed and I am making the switch to tops with longer sleeves and more fitted shoulders. And guess what? I have definitely added some bulk.

This is not entirely a surprise. Back in August I tried on a blazer that used to fit perfectly, and it was decidedly snug through the shoulders. But this morning I donned a pale-green blouse I've worn for years. I have worn it happily across a 30-pound weight range, but it does not fit me now. I wore it anyway, and spent the whole day feeling uncomfortable.

I guess this makes sense. Across the past ten years my bust and waist have been different sizes at different times, but never my shoulders. News flash, ladies: if you spend 5 months building your delts (and your lats and your traps), you may find that you need some wardrobe adjustments.

Can I tell you that I am having extremely mixed feelings about this? I love being able to shoulder-press a pair of 35-pound dumbbells for 3 sets. I've never been this strong before. I find it so satisfying to knock out sets of 10 or 12 pull-ups on the pull-up machine. (It will take me some time to do a double-digit number of unassisted pull-ups, but the amount of assist I need is dropping steadily.)

The pale-green blouse is too tight across my shoulders and upper back because I have persevered. I kept at it with deadlifts, even though the form is a total pain in the butt. I did bent-over rows until I felt queasy, and then I stopped and did the same thing twice more. I worked my delts even when I wanted to give up.

My body did what I was asking it to do: it grew me some nice sturdy new muscles. It feels ungrateful to have mixed feelings about this. And yet-- do you know any woman who wants to be labeled "sturdy"? I'm not sure I do. Have you ever heard a woman say, "My fitness plan has been such a success that I need larger clothes!" I have not.

It used to be part of my identity that I was "the skinny one." Part of me wants to say "to heck with that! it's better to be able to open your own jars than to be 'the skinny one'!" It's pretty sad that women so often think they would be "better" if they were smaller -- if less of them existed. If girls and women learn that it's undesirable for them to have visible muscles, then they're easier to push around. And who wants that?

Well. I might want that a tiny bit. I just might.

I am not going to pretend this makes a lot of sense, but I am also going to guess that many of you will find it unsurprising. 

#58

In the spring of 2020 Joe told me I could learn how to do a pull-up in a month, but he amended it to three months when he saw what my actual upper-body strength situation was like in May 2020. I lost momentum with home workouts, though. I reached the point where I could do the two halves of a pull-up separately (from dead hang to 90° elbow bend, from 90° to the top of the bar -- I just couldn't stitch them together), and then I developed a repetitive strain injury in my right elbow.

In May of this year Joe asked me if I'd be interested in lifting with him, and I said yes. I have all but stopped knitting, because I think the combination of lifting and knitting last summer sparked the repetitive strain issue. I have tried to strike a good balance between pushing myself and listening to my middle-aged body. I have asked Joe a kazillion questions, and he has responded with patience and encouragement.

And guess what? Today was chin-up day!

It was kind of accidental. I was using the platform-assisted pull-up machine, and it was slightly broken. I set the pin at 10, meaning it was supposed to offset ten pounds of my weight and I would lift up the rest. But that's not how it worked-- instead the platform lagged down below my knees, offering me zero support. I got to the top, unsupported, and thought, "Did I really just do that?"

Trying to chin myself on a pull-up bar has been frustrating, but today showed me two of the reasons why. With all of my bar attempts I have had too much swing from stepping forward off the box. I can't lift myself and stabilize myself at the same time. The platform-assisted pull-up machine lets me focus on the lifting. There's no swing to worry about.

It also feels easier to do the move with bent knees than with straight legs. I don't know if that makes sense mechanically, but that's how it feels.

So it turns out that I could not do a pull-up after one month, and I could not do a pull-up after three months. I have lifted weights and practiced pull-ups three times a week for NINETEEN WEEKS. On the one hand, I'm proud of that. The weight room hasn't felt like a welcoming space, and I've stuck it out anyway. I went back after the day I left the gym crying. I've learned some of the form pointers and some of the jargon, and I've made gains across the board. But on the other hand, I've been a little frustrated with the fact that I've been trying to do a pull-up for NINETEEN WEEKS. That's a long time! That's 57 pull-up-focused workouts! But today, day 1 of week 20, workout #58-- today I did it.

The pandemic retreat

In the spring of 2020, when we were still optimistic that our concerted efforts could halt the spread of COVID, I said yes to being part of the team for a fall 2020 retreat. I have posted a lot about these retreat teams over the years. They are a ton of work, and I have grumbled about that. They have required me to do things I found difficult and scary, and I have definitely had some Thoughts about that. But these retreats are a place where the women in my parish encounter Jesus, and where we are knitted together into a community dedicated to serving him. So I keep saying yes.

I keep reminding myself that I felt a clear call to say yes in the spring of 2020. "How's this going to work in a pandemic?" I asked the director at the beginning. "Well," she said, "we're going to have to figure that out."

Last summer I was pretty emphatic about the need to reschedule, which is what wound up happening. In the spring of this year a new date was announced, along with the requirement that anyone attending would need to be vaccinated. For a little while there, it looked like maybe we could have a normal-ish retreat after all.

But now-- not so much. The retreat center is requiring masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. It's going to be weird to have small-group discussions with masked participants. It's harder to read facial cues when people are masked. It's harder to understand people wearing masks in a noisy room. We're hoping for good weather so we can take those conversations outside.

We haven't been singing at our team meetings because of COVID, which means that just today -- 4 days before the retreat -- I finally sat down and learned to play the theme song. I've had a bad attitude about the theme song. It comes from the crew at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and if it were up to me I would boycott anything from that organization until they engaged in some kind of public repentance and reparations. The overt Trump support, the insistence on indoor gatherings that pushed their county back into the most restrictive tier of mitigations, the disparaging comments from a church leader about COVID precautions -- they have a lot to answer for. It puts me in mind of Romans 2: God's name is blasphemed among the non-believers because of folks like YOU. I don't want to contribute in any way to building their audience.

Alas, I am too far down the totem pole to get a vote on the theme song for this retreat, so I am sucking it up like a meek little buttercup. (Doesn't mean I have to like it, though!) And I am reminding myself that 15 years elapsed between the composition of Amazing Grace and John Newton's apology for participation in the slave trade. Maybe that should spur me to be hopeful instead of resentful. Maybe it should.

Foster #12

We haven't fostered a dog since Mickey left us in July, but we're taking a short-term little guy named Teddy over the weekend. A question for you: is Friday morning part of the weekend in your mental calendar? The woman who currently has Teddy had asked for someone to take him while she traveled "for the weekend"; we volunteered. She messaged me yesterday to say "I'd like to drop him off on Friday morning." I said, "I have to be in the office until Friday afternoon." She responded with irritation. I did not say to her, "...don't most people work on Friday mornings?" but how many people have open schedules on Fridays? Elwood volunteered to work from home to accommodate her, but she was not at all gracious about the situation. Is that a little presumptuous? Is it a COVID thing, since many people are still working at home?

It is a little weird that I am kicking off this post by being judgy about this woman, because the thing that prompted it was someone else's judginess. In the alumni group for our organization, a different woman posted to say that she and her husband needed to surrender their dog. They had moved, they were working long hours, they weren't able to give the dog what he needed, they believed that he'd be happier in another setting. One of the commenters was pretty vicious: This sounds like a problem you should be able to solve! I hope your dog gets a REAL forever home this time!

That kind of comment doesn't align with the shelter's stated philosophy, which is that we're not going to heap judgment on people who surrender their animals. But it reflects an attitude that the leadership has to smack down pretty regularly across the various Facebook groups. And I have a theory: I think it's related to the whole "fur babies" change.

Obviously, you don't surrender a baby because you get a different job or a different house. Maybe it's hard, but you make it work. The baby is more important than the job. The baby is more important than anything. This is not true of a pet -- other things can be more important than a pet. It's not a personal failing to realize that you can't take good care of a pet. Maybe I would view it differently if I saw pets as "fur babies," but I do not.

When I wrote that post in the spring about changes in dog care, they seemed benign and amusing. This comment was not benign, though.

Spirals

I am having a social anxiety flare, in which I am convinced that everyone in my orbit is secretly thinking, "Well, one silver lining of the pandemic was that I spent less time with that VERY ODD Jamie Gladly. Too bad that part's over!" And then the worry makes me a little weirder than normal, which doesn't help matters.

In my home, with people who love me, I tend to lean into the quirky. Tonight at dinner Elwood asked me to sing God Save The Queen for reasons I can no longer remember even though dinner was only a few hours ago, and I gave it my best shot. Unfortunately, even though I can sing multiple verses of My Country 'Tis of Thee, I am a little vague on the words to God Save The Queen.

God save our noble queen
Let her eat all the beans?

God save our noble queen
Grant her a ZamboNI?

That one doesn't even scan but OH MY did we laugh at the prospect of Queen Elizabeth driving a Zamboni around an ice rink.

The sad thing about the world beyond my dinner table is that the line between hilarious and VERY ODD is sometimes a little hard to make out, except in hindsight.

(I am not bursting into song in any committee meetings.)

We are a third of the way through the semester now, and it is feeling like midterm season. Twice this week I jolted awake at 5, thinking, "I'M BEHIND I'M BEHIND!" Maybe the thing I need most in order to put the brakes on the anxiety spiral is a good night's sleep.

I am also mired in anxiety about house stuff. Perhaps I am not the only one feeling stuck there? I called the people who have come in the past to clear clogged drains, because our washing machine drain is backing up. The old phone number went to a new person's voice mail, and the new person did not respond. When I called back, the new person's voice mail was full.

It always causes me some stress, arranging (or trying to arrange) for a person to come and take care of something around the house. It feels more anxious-making than usual right now. How far out will they be booked up? Everybody's booked up right now, correct? What are the odds that I can find someone who's being sensible about COVID?

I guess I have blogged myself into a partial solution here: I think I will call the plumber, who recommended the first drain guy and who seems likely to be reasonable about COVID. Maybe he can come? Maybe he can recommend someone else? This is a solvable problem.

(The bursting-into-song-at-the-dinner-table thing, though -- that seems to be an intractable issue.)

Well, it's a good thing I'm not superstitious

If I were a superstitious person I might think my happy blog post from last night had caused the email I got today, in which the Dean of Students office let me know that one of my students has COVID without saying "your student has COVID." 

If I were a grumpy person I might grouse about it because this particular person sat in class and coughed up a storm both days this week -- mostly masked, but only mostly.

If I were a crotchety person I might mutter a little about the whole water bottle thing. It hasn't been that long since students drank water between classes, not during them. We did not take water bottles to class with us when I was an undergrad, but these days they are ubiquitous, and they occasion a lot of mask breaks. This idea that human beings shouldn't go an hour in a climate-controlled building without a beverage is a recent one.

If I were an irritable person I might complain about my unwarranted optimism. I thought to myself, "Surely with a cough like that she has been tested for COVID already. Surely she would not take a cough like that out in public in the middle of a pandemic unless she knew she was not going to be spreading COVID to the people sitting near her."

But! instead! I am trying to be a grateful person.

A) Grateful, so grateful, for the vaccines and for a high proportion of vaccinated students and staff.

B) Grateful for a campus mask mandate that seems likely to result in the containment of most of those virus-laden respiratory particles.

C) Grateful for low numbers of new cases on campus this fall (this one is probably closely related to items A and B above).

D) Grateful for good health, good luck (so far, at any rate!), and a good job.

...and also-- still a bit crabby about the whole thing. I really hope the students sitting around her were all vaccinated.

The administration has told us that we are expected to ignore students coughing in class. This makes sense. We can't say "have you been tested for COVID?" because that would be invasive and students' medical decisions are not their professors' business. But the assumption that students will say to themselves "I should get this cough checked out" turns out to be a faulty one. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

In-person teaching in a pandemic

I am so much happier teaching in person.

We are all masked and the students are pretty good about it. It's a little weird to encounter a student outdoors without a mask, because I'm not very good at predicting what the lower half of someone's face will look like. Learning names is going really slowly, but I'll keep at it.

I have a little microphone. The speaker hooks into a pocket or a waistband, or hangs around my neck if I have neither pocket nor waistband, and the microphone curls around my head like a 1950s phone operator's headset. It is making my life a lot easier. In years past my most consistent request from students in the classroom has always been to speak up and slow down-- I have a small voice and I speed up when I get excited. The microphone doesn't give me a ton of amplification, but it seems to be enough to counteract the effects of the mask. My students always have an open invitation to throw up a hand and ask me to back up, rephrase, slow down -- but nobody is taking me up on the offer this semester.

I saw a professor complaining on social media about the difficulties of masked teaching, saying it had been terribly hard on her lungs and her voice. Little microphones FTW, man. My voice is holding up better than usual. When the microphone does the work, my lungs don't have to.

It seems like a lot of what we do in the classroom should transfer into online teaching, but that has not been my experience. When I lecture enthusiastically, I can feel the students' reciprocal enthusiasm. I mean, sure, some of them are always going to be yawning in the corner, but I love that sense of taking a class to a new and interesting place where they've never been before. Over the months that I was teaching remotely, it was so disheartening to pour my most enthusiastic efforts into the computer. In the classroom I toss a metaphorical ball to the students and they catch it and throw it back. Online I toss a ball to the students and it thuds to the ground.

Teaching in person makes me tired. When I go to class in person I am ON ON ON, and then afterwards I have a bit of a slump-slump-slump. I've always felt like I should be able to walk right out of class and into the next work task, and it has always bugged me that I need a little time to unwind instead. But this semester I am viewing it differently: on good days, something magical happens in the classroom. And magic is hard work.

Almost

Remember how I was going to give an unassisted pull-up a whirl today? This morning I warmed up in the basement, where we have a pull-up bar in front of the furnace. (This is a terrible place for it, because it's way too easy for swinging knees or feet to kick the furnace, but it's also the only place for it. Every other door frame in our house has a lintel that's pentagonal rather than rectangular -- the top, instead of being flat, slopes upward to form a gentle point in the center. You probably wouldn't notice it unless you were trying to hang a pull-up bar.) Then I did a platform-assisted set at the gym: 8 reps, 40 pounds offset. And then I chalked up and faced off with the pull-up bar. 

First I hopped off the step and tried to pull up from the bottom of a dead hang. I couldn't do it, so I tried again. I have to stand on tiptoe on the step to reach the bar, so I gave myself a gentle upward nudge with one foot. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't generate a lot of upward oomph while standing on tiptoe. But that little nudge was all I needed: I swooped right on up to the top from there. So I did a few of those and then went back to the platform-assisted machine to get a bit more volume in.

It makes sense to me that I got nowhere from a dead hang: I haven't been practicing that specific maneuver at all. With platform-assisted pull-ups you always get some help at the bottom; that's just how the machine works. With band-assisted pull-ups, the bottom of the rep is where you get the most help, since that's where the resistance band is stretched the farthest. 

Joe says I should check out "scapula shrugs" on YouTube to tackle that last tiny bit of distance between me and a real true honest-to-goodness pull-up. I guess, actually, I've been imprecise in my nomenclature here-- I almost always use a chin-up grip (knuckles facing me) because it allows me to use my biceps more than a pull-up grip does (knuckles facing away). I mix it up a little bit, but I figure I'll start with a chin-up and progress from there.

I think I'll also try some reverse reps in the basement to see if that helps. I made up that name, I think, but what I mean is this: start at the top, let myself down, and then pull myself back up. It seems like it might be easier to change the direction of the movement than to overcome inertia at the bottom of a dead hang. Maybe? Maybe that just sounds like wishful thinking, now that I've written it out.

Anyway: I'm close! Really close! Maybe I'll post a video when I get there.