Lumpectomy

A couple of months ago I felt a lump on my forearm that felt a bit like a Tic Tac sewn under the skin. It didn't go away, and last week I went to the doctor's about it and was informed it was a "sebaceous cyst". So I had it cut out. Just thought I'd share. (Apparently these are very common and totally harmless, if rather gross when finally unearthed - it looked like a little blob of bloody gristle, as I'm sure you're dying to know.)

Polar Vortex Part III

We are told that it will EVENTUALLY warm up, but in the meantime, we're having another visit from this Polar Vortex thing.

Toboggan Hill

Another day off for Frederick (J. sick) so I thought we'd finally investigate the sledding hill that Tom the Wood Guy has been telling me about.  20 minutes of driving ending at a dead end in the middle of nowhere brought us to this:

 The more observant reader will notice that today is a "closed" day.  But screw that, it just meant that we had virgin slopes (it snowed quite a bit last night) to ourselves (and a couple more carloads pulled up just as we were leaving, so I didn't feel too guilty).  It's not quite the deathrun Tom made it out to be, but it was certainly more intense than our usual slope.

 The trip back up.  Tom had assured me that one climb would be enough to drain any kid's batteries, but Frederick is made of sterner stuff - it took four.

Trying to video the second run didn't quite work.  Without arms to dig into the snow to steer, we quickly lost control.  No, that is not a bad word.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat...

This is a mailbox buried in snow not far from where I am teaching an outreach course to high schoolers. So far, since the semester started January 6th, the high school class has been cancelled 5 times. Next Monday we are scheduled to have class but the high school we are in will be closed, so that won't work. So that will be missed class #6. Then, the week after, both classes will be cancelled. It's been a tedious business trying to keep these kids on track, never mind the CONSTANT interruptions going on during class: announcements from the principals office, national anthems being played, allegiances to flags being pledged, fire drills, lock down security drills (lock door, lights out, and hope that no one shoots you through the shitty cylinder block walls), students getting pulled out of class to deal with family emergencies, phones ringing in class--and I am not talking about a student's phone but the phone built into the wall of the classroom that rings randomly, incessantly...then there is the PERPETUAL furniture shifting/scraping noise from the room above us. Everyone complains about how little high schoolers learn and now I have a clear idea why: they CAN'T learn, no one could, in an institution with that much disruption going on.

Our big Hollywood break!

As always, our weeks are busy and so I didn't have time to write about something that happened last Monday until now. I did teach my Monday class to the high schoolers last week (although only about half were in class because the roads were unusable). When I was done and got back to my car, I saw on my phone that a new email had arrived from the department secretary, Martha. She was forwarding a voice mail message that had been left while she was away at lunch. Here it is:

[phone number] Jamie Anderson I'd like to do a movie on jamie's book -- Lawson be able to you soon -- Harvey rock my name is Lauren he could have Jamie anderson's of call assignment cursing -- or both if you are rearrange discuss doing a movie about.

Apparently the gist of this garbled message is that a film producer (I'll leave out his name to protect the innocent, but we checked that he really existed on IMDB and he has a couple of films to his credit - one involving Neve "Scream" Campbell and a "short" involving the now-ancient Ed Asner) contacted the department with an idea of making a movie of the book that we edited. (Simon is the "cursing" part of the message.) I found this out when I called him back later that evening. Stupified I asked what the movie would be about (the book is, after all, a collection of academic papers!).  Now, a documentary I could almost imagine (though how that would be done now, I can't imagine, since most of the relevant events are 7 years in the past). But no, he was envisioning a full-length (100 minutes) feature film. "What would happen?" I asked, still incredulous. Apparently that where we come in. All we need to do is to whip up a "movie treatment"--and don't think in words, think in images as movies tell a story with images (duh!) that "tells the story." What story? That's what we put into the movie treatment! It's simple, when you think about it.

So, this is what I came up with: a moderately successful professional woman, mother of two, receives word that her younger son is autistic. Initially bummed, this causes tension in the household: the older son becomes a drug addict and his previously stellar grades slip, he stops bathing or even getting hair cuts; the marriage crumbles and the husband is killed in a car crash (probably drunk/stoned at the time after spending the evening at an all-night rave). Faced with a "do or die" moment, she pulls her socks up, quits her job (being supported by the generous life insurance policy she had the wisdom to take out on her husband during better times), and bravely soldiers on. Final scene: she is walking on a beach into the setting sun, each hand holding a hand of one of her kids.

Simon, however, being the killjoy that he is, decided that the whole thing would be too stressful and that we should go on as if we never got The Call.
[This is of course complete fiction - Jami was the one who decided it couldn't be done.  I suggested she give him her long-planned zombie movie outline instead.]
Jami:  No way.  That is going to Bruce Campbell and no one else.

Yet more wintry scenes

Fimbulwinter

It just keeps coming. Here was this weekend:

Today was even worse.  What makes it worse is that the schools have essentially used up all the days they can cancel, while the county seems to have used up all the money for snowplowing.  So entire freeways were closed because of all the cars and trucks that span off.  Here's what it looked like this evening, giving some evidence of roads that had only been cleared to the extent that cars had flattened the snow:

Simon only had to drive to work and back today--a total of around 3 miles. I had the pleasure of taking Thomas to school, 45 miles there, then drive another 15 miles to my "outreach" course in a nearby high school (to high schoolers who were unwise enough to let on to someone that they were vaguely interested in a career in healthcare sciences), then back to Thomas, and then back home--a total of 120 miles. When we awoke, it didn't look so bad--obviously it had snowed last night, but nothing amazing. But then the snow started pouring down, an inch every hour for the next 5 hours. The drive to Thomas's school, which normally takes 50 minutes door to door took two hours. He was concerned until he realized he was missing a math test in his first period class. At one point we were going 2 mph. I spent far too much of my wee hours contemplating Exit 102 which seemed to be eternally 1 1/2 miles away. Finally, we passed an on ramp that was blockaded by three police cars. Hmmm, that can't be good. The last time I saw cops do that a tanker truck full of toxic liquid gas had flipped on I-23 and Frederick and I were stuck in traffic for 4 hours simply trying to turn around to head home. After that, things picked up ever so slightly and we nearly reached 5 mph. Ages later we passed three more police cars parked in a line which forced all drivers into the left most lane. Problematically, though, all this car shuttling and lane switching caused drivers to swerve madly, sent one into a ditch and another, to avoid that spiraling car, spun sideways and then continued to drive this way for about half a mile! It was a sight to behold--even Thomas roused himself from his stupor and watched in amazement. ("Why is he doing that?" he asked.) Once everyone got into the left lane and locked their tires in the cleared ruts, the excitement settled down and we were able to speed up to an astonishing 10 mph. This seemed very promising--the source of the traffic trouble MUST be getting closer! And suddenly there it was: a giant, double trailer semi was being escorted--two police cars in front, two in back--as it crawled in the rightmost lane, going the wrong direction. Yes, a semi truck was driving INTO traffic. As much as I hate those who stare at accidents, this was a sight that was difficult to avert ones eyes from. Once we did get past him, and were able to distribute ourselves back across two lanes, we were able to whiz along at 40 miles per hour. Finally I was rid of Thomas and had to get myself sorted to get to my class. Between Thomas's school and my school, I saw four cars stuck in ditches and another semi truck in serious trouble, this one half on the road, half in a parking lot, leaning precariously with the rear right wheels stuck in a ditch. Half my students did not make it to class, four of them who had car-pooled together had been thrown off the road into a snow drift when a semi drifted out of his lane into theirs. It was a silly and useless class after a long line of silly classes (last Monday's weather was similarly dramatic and again, only half the students were in class). After finishing with that, I headed back to pick up Thomas and to head home. Not feeling optimistic about matters, we barely left his school parking lot and found ourselves in bumper to bumper traffic. A one mile neighborhood road had a big vehicle blockage and no one was moving in either direction. Finally the clot cleared (I have no idea what the problem was) and we got moving, got on the freeway, got back to Flint only to find that our own street was closed because a mains pipe had burst. I was supposed to go to Ann Arbor with Frederick this evening, which would have logged on another 120 miles, but I refused. Over all a very stupid day.