Snow: 4 Susan: 0

When I bought my Honda civic in 2004, I drove it nearly three weeks later to Indiana. Bessie, as she is affectionately named, did a nice job waiting patiently in my dorm room and apartment parking lots. I barely drove her while at school, because I could get a parking permit for oncampus ---something next to unheard of here at the U of Iowa, and because most of what I needed was centrally located pretty close to that dorm or apartment. I never had to venture too far into the town of Bloomington out of necessity, though I did often for discoveries and random oddities. Bessie handled the Indiana snow, what little there was that I drove through like a pro. However, now that I am back in Iowa, and the snow does not melt usually the same day it falls, Bessie has come up against some challenging issues.
Observe:

Snow 1 Susan 0: Coming home from work at the public library one night, during a not so fun blizard, Bessie could not make it up the hill on Rocky Shore Drive/Park Road. It wasn't really her fault, she's a front wheel drive baby, and the plows had not been out yet...luckily, I could simply turn around in a driveway, and stay with my roommate (who was housesitting at the bottom of said hill).

Snow 2 Susan 0: The next morning, Bessie made it up the hill just fine...the plows had been out, the road was sanded and all was good. Until, I got back to my own apartment. Between the snow from the night before, the lack of the apartment parking lot being cleared, AND the snow piled up in the entrance from the plows going by...there was more than a surmountable bit of snow blocking my way. Well, I did what any logical woman would do in this situation**, looked to the parking lot next door which belongs to the U of Iowa. (The theater building lot to be exact, which is free on the weekends...and this, was a Sunday) Well no such luck...it was early, about 8:30am and the U of I plow crews were just getting to the music building down the street.

I decided I could go it alone.

Because, really, I just needed to shovel out enough of the plowed up snow, and get up enough momentum and I should be able to glide into the parking lot - with some expected minor fishtailing. No such luck. After clearing the first foot of snow with the shovel off the parking lot entrance, and climbing back into the car, and making a nice turn from the road, coming from the left...poor sweet Bessie met her second icky winter weather issue.

She was stuck.

I shoveled out around the car, and still had no luck. Stuck at the entrance to my parking lot. No one else could get in around me...but no one else was up at that hour anyway. Lucky for me the very nice man who was plowing the sidewalks for the University of Iowa, (that I immediately sought out to help) was good enough to come over and attempt to help. He pushed the car from behind, and I pushed the gas. No luck...we tried reversing, and I happened to get stuck again, halfway out into the street, ergo blocking on coming traffic. A few minutes later the public safety officers arrived in thier patrol car...it took all three men pushing on my car to get me BACK out into the street, and I was no better off than before. I drove around the block a number of times, and the UI guy took pity on me, and cleared the rest of the opening to my parking lot for me. I was then able to get into a spot.

Snow 3 Susan 0
A few days ago, I had my third run in with the snow gods. I tried to back out of my parking space to make a doctors appointment. What do you know. Stuck again. This time the cause of the problem, a rut created by ice and snow and other people's tires before mine. Anyways, around 9pm that night, I was finally able to drive out of that spot..while my roommate and friend watched...(I had thought they'd have to push me out) So I ended up looking like an idiot. My other friend was nice enough to give me a ride earlier in the day to the appoitnment, so I at least didn't miss that.

Snow 4 Susan 0
Today marks my 4th frustrating annoying experience with this year's Iowa winter snow. I was dogsitting for friends in North Liberty, near the Coralville Res. Their driveway is almost a mile long and turns and twists a bit, but the only real hill part is right before the actual paved driveway itself, as the rest is gravel. Well, I had no trouble getting into the driveway this morning to let the dogs out and give 'em breakfast. The snow was coming down pretty hard, and by the time I tried to leave at 9:30, probably an inch or so had fallen on the already covered drive. Wouldn't ya know? Bessie couldn't make it up the little hill.

I went from a half gallon of gas to a quarter of a gallon of gas during my rounds of attempts. I shoveled out the whole length of the hill up to its crest. I put down sand and salt around my car and in front and behind it. I tried unsuccessfully 2 times before I called my dad, exasperated. "Why do you always call me when you get stuck?" He spoke gruffly. "Because you're a physics person, you know how these momentum things work" I told him. He suggested all the things I'd already done, but I did get the phone numbers I needed to call into work and tell them I might be late. (Yes I'm working on a Saturday...but it's not busy, so I"m blogging) Anyway, I called both the public library and the art library employees, and they are all very understanding...but I say, I may make it if I can get out. I really just need a good push or something. Then I called another friend who lives nearby, but she didnt' answer, so I called my roommate, and melted down a little. Yes, I had a very "girl emotional" moment, and lost it slightly. I was so frustrated, and I had somewhere to be. My roomie was pretty understanding as she always is, and offered to come and get me. I told her to stay away, since I didn't know if the rest of the roads had been plowed yet either, and I resigned myself to sit in the car for a bit, collect myself, go back inside and wait it out for awhile. (The owners of the house will be home before supertime, hopefully). But then, I saw a group of deer bounding around nearby, and they came over (probably to investigate the smell emainating from my tires) and started to literally sniff at my car. It wasn't exactly an easy moment to open the door, scare them away and retreat into the house. So I waited a bit longer, and watched them move about. They are actually quite pretty, and I wished I had been outside the car to get a picture of one of the deer sniffing at my headlights. Luckily the deer out by the Res are not quite as tame as those by my parents house, and when I hit the car horn, they all dashed back off into the cover of the trees.
I told my roomie on the phone: I want to commune with Nature, but apparently Nature is telling me to shut the hell up. And when I hit the horn, I yelled scatter into the phone because it's an inside joke with a few friends, including Cas. She started laughing, and so did I, which made me take a breath and stop the flow of meltdown in progress, and I told her "wait, listen to how this sounds" and I made the final attempt up the hill.
Apparently enough of the salt/snow/sand mix worked, and Bessie had enough energy again, or perhaps she felt sorry for me after my outburst of tears, that she finally made it up the little hill.

So what I've learned from all this: My dad was right to have me always carry a shovel, sand and salt in my trunk, as well as an emergency kit so that I can be prepared.
Help will sometimes arrive in the form of people, animals, or pity.
And sometimes, you're just going to get stuck.


**logical woman really only refers to what I suggest might be logical, and this is my disclaimer that what I did/do remains not quite logical to some.

An American in Paris #68 (AFI)

Cas and I also sat down to watch An American In Paris recently. I have to say, having been to the City of Light in 2001, it brought back some fond memories of getting lost in the city and stumbling upon the Paris Opera house. I believe the best scene in the movie is toward the end when Gene Kelly and Leslie Carron are dancing in a fountain, mind you it is not a real fountain, but a stage fountain which includes fabric water "sprays" that rise from the mouths of the figural beasts on the exterior circle of the fountain. They twirl and whirl and it is rather divine and romantic. I'm not much of a romantic sucker. I mean, I laughed when Rose finally let go of Jack's hand in Titanic as his corpse-cicle plunged to the depths. (This was of course after she's emphatically exclaimed, "I'll never let go!" about a million times...well okay, maybe only twice..but it just seemed to ironic for her to say that, and then literally let go, while maybe metahorpically still "holding on") Anyways, I digress.

American in Paris features the fancy footwork of Gene Kelly, and to be honest, he rather remarkably resembles a penguin in many movements. So much so, that when I think on it, and in fact mentioned to Cas that, I now understand where Dick Van Dyke got his inspiration for Mary Poppins. He was mimicing Gene Kelly mimicing penguins. (or at least that's my opinion)

Leslie Carron's performance shows that she's a classically trained dancer with a more modern dancer's build, which makes her endearing if not a little bit more believeable as the "woman they are all in love with"

Overall, it's entertaining, though I felt the dream sequence at the end runs a little too long.

Double Indemnity #38 AFI

Cas and I sat down last night to watch a movie that I'd rented from the CPL last week. Without remembering that it was on the AFI list, but thinking it looked good. I rented Double Indemnity. It's a fantastic noir genre piece that stars Fred MacMurry and Barbara Stanwyck. I highly recommend it to anyone who is or is not a noir buff. Having finished a paper on Edward Hopper's Nighthawks for my art history course last semester, I could see the influences of Hopper's paintings of isolation and shadow playing into the cinematography of Wilder's direction. Besides the great on screen chemistry of the leads, the film is a good old fashioned murder mystery with a well written script and a slew of Academy awards to its credit. Also, coincidently enough, Cas will be staring in a noir piece for City Circle's upcoming Valentine's weekend theater experience. I think she was definitly finding some character traits to play up while watching the film....

Additionally, we also watched two more films, A Perfect Murder (the Michael Douglas version/remake of the original Hitchcock film) which features another murder/attempted murder, insurance money clause plot. I told Cas she needed to see my favorite Audery Hepburn movie, Wait Until Dark, which is adapted for the screen by Hitchcock first, and originally the play Dial M for Murder.

It was a great night for good classic films and very enjoyable.

caucus time

There is one very good reason for me to keep my permanent address as my parent's address in Coralville, rather than my apartment address in Iowa City. Round about this time of year, during an election, we get numerous calls to our home asking about caucusing and supporting various candidates. I am a registered Democrat for the reason of having experienced my first caucus at age 18, at the Kirkwood Elementry school gym, and I caucused for Al Gore that year. I am only a registered Democrat for lack of energy in changing my status back to Independant, which I generally more aptly fall in to. So, unfortunately my parents have been fielding these phonecalls and adverts for me for the last couple of months. The few times I have been home, I did receive a knock on the front door, and a woman from the Obama camp asked to speak to me. She asked me who I was voting for and why. But, before I could actually tell her my opinions, my mom told her her own. I found this pretty hilarious. I only had enough time to slip in that I am caucusing for Hillary (haven't decided who I'll "Vote" for yet..), and mostly because of her health insurance plan, and her understanding of international politics that far outweighs that of her fellow candidates.
I will say this though...being in Iowa this is one of the few times we get all this national and international attention, and this year, with the caucus moved up, I know many students at the U of I and ISU and UNI won't be doing the caucus, because they are at home for winter break. THat will be interesting to see, since Obama appears to have a huge following at the U of I campus (this is based only on the # of ppl marching for him in the homecoming parade that I witnessed)...
guess it's anyone's race right now....

Aught Eight aught to...

While I haven't posted in awhile, I have thought about things I could write, and then just didn't get around to writing them here. So instead, a quick update and a new year's wish.

Finished the semester at UIowa with success in my one art history class, though I've found that high standards of excellence here, in the form of having to maintain a 3.5 gpa (which also counts for courses outside of the Art History program...see taking classes in translating French) means that I am also exploring other possible places to complete this degree (Hopefully my final one). I'm currently looking to programs that have a non-thesis track option, on the assumption that a non-thesis track program isn't trying to churn out professors after the M.A. projects, but instead recognizes that many people with an MA in art history do far more than go on to simply get a PHD. Case and point...me, art librarian, or many of my friends pursuing museum education and curatorial positions, or gallery jobs. So, alas, while I know that someone special is considering moving back to the area to be near me, I may fly the coup after one more year in the ole IC. He's well aware of this fact though, and we'll see how the whole "life" thing shakes out.

If I haven't already said congrats to the friends with recent additions (Ella Jane born December 18th) and those starting lives together (engaged, moving in together etc) well congrats to you all.

Life for me has been pretty nice lately. I could complain about the health related issues, but I hate it when I complain about them enough in person, so I'll spare you all the annoying details of migraines and headaches, and flu bugs, and now apparently a sinus infection. I think my primary reason for voting in this next election (and cacussing tomorrow night will be socialized healthcare for the U.S.) While I have insurance through one of the three jobs, it does not do nearly enough to cover the problems, and because of some past issues, I'm high-risk, so I can't get insurance through independent means. Luckily I have fantastic parents, who are understanding of my needs and have been kind enough to literally fit the bill for a number of things lately. I'm trying really hard to support myself, but unfortunately without a full time position that has health benefits, I'm sort of stuck in a limbo mode.

My roommate is a fantastic example of someone who has a dream of the job she'd like, and is working against the odds to get there. However, she, like me, has to have more than one job to support not only her day to day expenses but also that dream job. So goes the way of most of us in the humanities before we become big shots or big stars in our fields huh?

I do hope that everyone has a very happy and healthy start to Aught Eight, and that you will be able to reach those dreams and realize the potential you recognize in yourself and others.