Something Shiny! » Florida

Just beachy

emily — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 04:52:23 +0000

One of these days I’ll have to tell you about our trip to the beach in May. The sky was ridiculously blue, the water was fantastic, and the sand was warm and deliciously soft. There were plenty of bumps and hiccups in that trip, none of which I’d like to repeat, but man, what a view.

Spiders, snakes, and a lizard’s head

emily — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:14:48 +0000

I’m not afraid of spiders. I’m fairly sure I used to be, when I was a child, but I’ve since made my peace with the eight-legged world. We’ve got wolf spiders in the house and some other small, jumpy spider, and I honestly don’t mind letting them scuttle about as they please. (It’s not as if we have an infestation, after all. That might change my ‘live and let live’ policy.) But the other day, we noticed a larger spider outside our front door. It was, well, eating another spider. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a black widow. And that’s pretty much where I draw the line. Spiders are fine, but venomous spiders must die. We were running late, so we didn’t bother killing it right then. And (you see where this is going, right?) now we can’t find it. What we’ve noticed in the intervening days is that it’s likely a female, because it has made an egg sack (which, yes, we disposed of immediately). A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that “the female black widow’s bite is particularly harmful to humans because of its unusually large venom glands.” Nice. So, somewhere either inside or just outside of our humble abode, there lives a venomous black widow spider. I’m sure I’ll be sleeping well this week.

Kale!

emily — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 01:02:50 +0000

At this time of the year, when everybody else around the country has already put away their garden for the season and said farewell to their farmers markets, our second growing season is just getting underway. Our CSA has ramped up over the last couple of weeks, and this week our bag was brimming with salad greens, radishes, turnips, bok choy, and… kale. Do you get kale in your CSAs or at your local markets? Here we’ve got kale out the wazoo. Dinosaur Kale, Red Russian Kale, Tuscan Kale, and so much more. Have you tried kale? It’s what I would charitably call an “acquired taste.” Bitter and tough, it’s a bit hard for me to stomach. And oh, we’ve tried to stomach it. We’ve sauteed it, we’ve baked it, we’ve even blended it into a kale smoothie (I wouldn’t recommend it). And I just can’t get behind it. But then I read these food blog writers who talk about how much they love kale, and I figure I must be missing something. So, if you’ve got a kale recipe that just can’t be beat, drop me a line and tell me everything. Kale: it’s what’s for dinner?

High fashion

emily — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 11:38:16 +0000

One thing that’s supremely strange for a Midwesterner living in the South is the fashion. I’m not suggesting that what people wear down here is vastly different from what people elsewhere wear. Rather, that they get dressed to the nines for occasions you wouldn’t think would warrant it. Witness: women’s fashion at college football games. Turn on any SEC game this weekend and you’ll see college women in short, formal dresses. Prom dresses, really, though stores in Gainesville (and elsewhere, I’d wager) advertise that they sell “gameday dresses.” And I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine an outfit I’d be less comfortable in while at a football game. Well, one of these, maybe. Maybe. That might be a tossup.

In which I display my complete ignorance about religion

emily — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:40:11 +0000

I wasn’t raised in a religious household. I’m not a religious person. I haven’t read the Bible. So my credentials here are shaky, at best, is what I’m saying. But here goes. Certainly you’ve heard about a church here in Gainesville that plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It’s made national and international news, after all. [Insert rant about how researchers at UF who are doing groundbreaking work in their various fields can't even make local news, while a church that spews hatred and vitriol manages to get the world's attention.] Of the many things I don’t understand about this particular church (the same ones who printed “Islam is of the Devil” t-shirts and sent their children to school in them), certainly one of them is this: isn’t at least part of organized religion a message of love and kindness? From the little I know about the Bible, I understand that it has been used to justify a great number of things (among them, in this country, slavery). But aren’t there also injunctions to love thy neighbor? And edicts to ‘do unto others as you would have others do unto you’? How is spreading this kind of contempt productive in any way? Or do they just want attention?

Waiting game

emily — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:44:27 +0000

One of my favorite quotes from a book reads, “it does not to do dwell on dreams and forget to live.” Lately, I confess, I’ve been dwelling on dreams. I try so hard to live in the now, as it were, but I feel as though I’m failing entirely. With my dissertation safely in the hands of my committee members, and the dissertation status meeting more than a month away, I’ve got some time on my hands. Sure, I’m working on potential articles and dabbling in dissertation-related work, but I also find myself dreaming a lot. Maybe too much. About where we’ll be a year from now, about what kind of job (if any) I’ll be able to land, and, mostly, about what our life will look like When We Get Where We’re Going (TM). It doesn’t do to dwell on dreams, of course, but I can’t help but dwell a little bit. Especially in the middle of all this waiting.

Attack of the killer ants

emily — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:33:21 +0000

As if I needed more proof that humans aren’t actually supposed to inhabit this part of Florida: I was attacked yesterday at the dog park. Attacked by vicious, flesh-eating, soul-maiming, confidence-sucking ants. Ants. I’ve written before about how I got bitten by an ant. Ant, singular. But this was different. Swarming and crazed, they bit every part of my feet they could find. And then, just as I started looking like a crazy person, complete with flailing arms and enough cursing to make a sailor blush, they took on both John and the dog, biting everything in sight. Then, perhaps egged on by the ants’ success, the flies started biting. If we’d then been hit by frogs falling from the sky, I wouldn’t have been surprised. The end of days: let me show you it.

Broken

emily — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:03:40 +0000

I’m sorry to have to be the one to say this. But shit just doesn’t work right down here. People always ask us why we don’t like Gainesville, and it’s so hard to pinpoint. Certainly one of the reasons, though, is that shit just doesn’t work right down here. Case in point: the main library on campus. I turned in a recalled book last night, a full hour before closing (yes, on the day that it was due– what are you, the police?). I brought it into the library and took it to the Circulation book drop. I didn’t turn it in to the book drop outside the library because I wanted it to be taken off of my account sooner rather than later. People, it’s still on my account. The Circ workers last night weren’t outwardly busy and yet, what, couldn’t be bothered to empty the bookdrops sitting four feet away and discharge the books? And here’s where I go all Andy Rooney on you, grousing about stickers on fruit and stuff: where’s that midwestern work ethic I grew up with?!? I worked at a university library my entire undergraduate career and let me tell you, that shit would have never flown there. If I get a library fine because of this, there will be hell to pay. And while I’ve got your attention, let me tell you about stickers on fruit, too!

Spring Break, Florida style

emily — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:21:21 +0000

So! [claps hands] Where were we? After Friday’s debacle, I’m pretty relieved to be on Spring Break right now. Spring Break as a grad student is so very, very different from Spring Break as an undergrad. To wit: I’m on Spring Break Day Two and there’s nary a beach in sight. I’m in Florida, sure, but that’s about it. (My brother called the other night and, choking back laughter, asked if I was going to Florida for Spring Break. Har har har.) So what am I doing with my time, you ask? I’m catching some sun! I’m sleeping in late! I’m enjoying the beautiful weather! I’m… completely lying: in fact, I’m working on my dissertation. While I could pretend to be bummed about that, I’m actually totally jazzed. I’m so jazzed that I just used the word “jazzed.” It’s been since last summer that I had this kind of time to devote to my own research and I honestly couldn’t be happier. I only interrupted my work twice today: once for lunch and once to update my Facebook page about the Lohan-a-holic brouhaha. Because, seriously, could she be more crazy? Milk-a-whaaat? Good stuff. Here’s to Spring Break 2010! Come on down, the weather’s fine!

NaBloPoMo: Hunkering down

emily — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:08:27 +0000

One thing I really bemoan about living so far south is that we don’t really have a winter. I love super cold winters where you get to hunker down in your house with the fire blazing, wrapped in multiple layers, and really enjoy the warmth inside juxtaposed against the cold outside. Everyone I know got so tired of snow, ice, and cold fingers last winter, which I certainly understand. But I’m also secretly jealous.