Finding Bliss

Spent ALL of Thursday packing and headed out early on Friday morning with the kids, bound for Blissfest in Bliss, MI. Way, way up there in the finger tips of the lower peninsula. There are many people who love this festival. There are kids who have grown up on it. People who have gotten married there. Etc. Etc. But then there are also just the summer festival people -- the ones who hit all the traditional music festivals and the young adults who spend their summer going from one festival to another, volunteering to get a free ticket. I don't think that I fit in any of these categories.... I kept forgetting where I was and calling it Dunegrass. It is older than Dunegrasss and does a few things better, but I think I like Dunegrass' musical offerings better (at least what they've had in the last two years, not going this year).

The kids loved the Lake Michigan was near by and happily played away Friday's late afternoon into early evening at a rocky and sandy beach outside Cross Village after a fabulous lunch at Legs Inn. On Saturday, we let the shuttle bus drop us further up the shore along the dunes for more beach frolicking. We caught some music, but that was obviously secondary for the kids. E again spent lots of time reading and O played hard in the kid space. Both enjoyed the rockin' craft-making booth set up for the kids and the real juggle sticks I bought them at one of the booths. I got them to check out some music, but mostly I had to listen from the edges as I kept my eye on them. I wish that festivals would set the kid areas up near one stage. I realize that I might miss lots of music on the other stages, but at least I'd get to better engage with what happened on the one stage. As it was at Bliss, I could hear bits of all the stages, which means that I could hear none of them well.

Of the music, Kathy Mattea was quite good, even the kids got into a bit of her set. The winner was a Canadian band, however, The McDades. Three siblings up front with a guitarist and drummer thrown in for good measure. I'd call them sort of urban traditional with a touch of jazz. I caught all of both their sets, amazingly enough.



Of the festival, my favorite part was the members party that happened in a garden behind the stage. There were shaded and pleasant places to sit, lots of food and free beer from Founders and New Holland, and one could still hear the bands.

From Bliss we hit Legs Inn for another meal (kids like Polish food and the excellent garden!) and then drove down to North Higgins State Park to meet Stacey and the boys for more camping. The three smaller people delighted in seeing each other and had great adventures on the hiking trails, at the beach, on the volleyball court, etc. etc.

As we packed things up for the last time, the kids worked out their own 'secret' three-way handshake, captured in this final image. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone.

Stupid People

I had a wonderful day. Got things done around the house. Rode some great trails with Stacey. Rode up to catch last call at the Corner for a tasty beer and a bit of reading.

But on the ride home... oh, I love the bike and the zippy feeling I have after rolling around town.... But tonight. I would give tonight's ride back in moment, if I could. I was too close, yet too far away. I could see it happening. There was nothing I could do to stop it. It happened. I saw it. And there was still nothing I could do. So I sat at that stupid, stupid light at Grove and Spring that can't sense a bike and cursed at the stupid, stupid people who let their dog wander without a leash on a busy road and stupid, stupid cars driven by stupid, stupid people who don't slow down when they see stupid, stupid people wandering around in the road so that they are going too fast to see the dog who was faithfully following the stupid, stupid people out into the middle of the road. The tweener kid is crying, the man is yelling, the woman is hurrying back to the curb, the car does not stop, the dog is down and not moving. And I finally run the fucking light and ride home cursing at all of it.

End of an Era

I realized tonight as we finally settled in for some reading time, that the era of picture books has come to an end for us.

Emma moved on to her world of thick fantasy books long, long ago and a few months ago, I lured O into letting me read some chapter books to him. I liked the meatier stories and I liked not having to search through fifty books to choose two or three each evening. We read The Wizard of Oz, to much acclaim from both kids, and have been making our way through the Star Wars stories (I know, but they aren't terrible and they use some big words that -- when included in a section about a blaster fight -- prompt the boy to ask what they mean... he does listen intently!). These have been fun, but I realized tonight how much I will miss the art in and the art of a good picture book.

When we were at the library recently, I was enchanted by the art in the Russell the Sheep books and grabbed two. Since the chapter book we have been reading was not handy tonight, we read the Russell books. We enjoyed it, but it was more nostalgia enjoyment than anything. I think O felt it too... a kind of quaintness.

Before I lose the memories entirely, I thought I would note some of our favorites... books I have read aloud dozens and dozens of times... books whose art and stories are deeply set in our psyches...

Postcards

While I've been looking forward to plenty of adventuring this summer, the postcards that have been arriving at my house make me realize what small potatoes we have planned. Don't get me wrong, Michigan is a most excellent place to adventure when one treasures woods and water and music as much as we do, but... cards from South Carolina, Alaska, Vancouver, and Norway have me hankering to travel more widely. The postcard from Greece that will surely come next should pretty much send me over the edge. Good thing I ordered my new passport last week!

Invasion

Despite my declarations to the contrary, I did put in a small garden this year on the sunny side of the house. This bed was terribly overgrown and needed to be cleared (because it contained poison ivy) and that created an opportunity for food bearing plants to go in. So, in they went: two kinds of tomatoes, baby watermelon, cukes, eggplant and broccoli. Things have been going along swimmingly but then today when I went to take a peek at them, the tomato plants were covered in aphids.

I'm pretty sure they weren't there yesterday or at least the day before, so I have caught it early, but they were everywhere on one plant and present on the other. With instructions from the internet, I made up a soapy, oily goo to spray on them. I will admit, my first thought was "see, this is why I don't garden!" We shall see...

Rejection

After a couple of weeks of reading applications and conducting 27 interviews, I've made my picks for who will join the WILL (Women in Learning and Leadership) program in the fall. Sending out acceptance letters was easy -- congratulations, get registered, look for first meeting in Sept, contact me if you have questions, etc. etc.

The time-consuming and rather annoying task, however, has become writing the rejection letters for those who will not be joining us. I am only the incoming director, you see. I don't officially take over until Sept (or July... no one is quite sure) and I need to stay in the good graces of the outgoing director (who is stepping up to be Associate Dean of my college and someone I will need to work closely with on some things) so I have to follow her wishes on a few matters dealing with the administration of WILL at this moment. And she has made it very clear -- as has the director of the WGST program -- that I need to tailor rejection letters to the individual student. I'm supposed to be encouraging and positive.

But see, I'm not so good at that and I really don't see the point. The great bulk of people that I'm rejecting are people who don't make the GPA cut off. Honestly, they never should have applied and they should have known this since the 3.0 requirement is clearly stated on the application. "I'm sorry, we are unable to accept you because you do not meet the clearly stated and long established criteria of the program. If you are able to pull your grades up, we'll be happy to consider your application next year." Is that encouraging?

The other people are folks who had nothing to offer and little to say... people who could not say why they wanted to be in the program, what issues they are interested in, etc. etc. So how do I explain this while being encouraging? "I'm sorry we are unable to offer you a place in the program and we wish you the best of luck in finding something that excites you enough that you can say more than three words about it."

I'm trying very hard to not think that I am jumping through these hoops just because this is part of a Women and Gender Studies program. I reject tea party feminism where being nice to women takes precedence over doing good work and producing meaningful results. Rejection happens and we all need to learn to deal with it and not expect to be coddled through it. There is good reason why the program has a GPA requirement -- it can be intense and it is not for struggling students who need to put academics first. And if you are not invested in the program, the students who are will come to resent you for not doing your part and that will distract us all from doing what we need to do. So..."Thank you for applying, but we are unable to offer you a space in the program." Now, go study.

What to do with the camper...

Well, I won't have a van soon... maybe I'll need to go to something like this to meet my hauling needs :)