Once I got back from abroad, I was able to get back to my resolution about trying new recipes.

Lemon Garlic Chicken from Kitchn–excellent. Vanessa had recommended this on FB. It’s going into the rotation. I served it with linguine. A+

It’s been incredibly hot in Davis, so I was trying to find a cold noodle dish.

Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Coconut-Lime Dressing from Bon Appetit. This one didn’t really float our boat–there was something missing, but we couldn’t figure out what. C

Udon with Chicken and Garlicky Peanut Dressing from Bon Appetit. This one was better, though I wanted it to have more of a kick. B

Spicy Green Bean and Tofu Stir-Fry with Ground Bison from Food & Wine. I liked this one, but the tofu didn’t get a chance to soak up the flavor at all. Next time, I would marinate the tofu for quite a while first. B

Chilled Corn Soup with Basil from Neighborhood Roots. This was a hit at book group. (I didn’t strain it, though.) A+

Cioppino-style Soup with Shrimp from Food 52. Dante and I loved this one. We’re eating the leftovers tomorrow night for dinner. A+

Silky Tomato Soup with Corn from Cooking Light. Dante didn’t love it (he doesn’t like tomato soup to be interesting), but my friends all loved it and wanted the leftovers/recipe. A+

Thai Chicken with Basil from Food & Wine. This was exactly what it was meant to be–it made a great lunch over rice, but we wanted more sauce. B+

Cucumber Gin and Elderflower Martini from Kitchen Swagger. My chiropractor gave me lemons and cucumbers from his garden. This is one of the new recipes I tried with them. Yummy, if a bit sweet for me! A

Old favorites

I’m not sure where I got this one:

ANGEL HAIR WITH GREEN-AND-YELLOW-TOMATO SAUCE

• 2 tablespoons pure olive oil 
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 2 large shallots, minced 
• 1 pound yellow tomatoes, diced 
• 1 pound ripe green heirloom tomatoes, such as Green Zebra, diced 
• 1/4 cup chopped basil 
• 2 sage leaves, finely chopped 
• Salt 
• 1/2 pound angel hair pasta 
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, or 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 

1. In a skillet, heat the oil. Add the garlic and cook over low heat until fragrant, 2 minutes. Add the shallots and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, 4 minutes. 
2. In a bowl, toss the tomatoes with the garlic, shallots, basil and sage. Season with salt. 
3. In a pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente; drain and transfer to the large bowl. Toss well with the butter; serve.

My mom’s Banana Bread

3 overripe bananas

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter or butter-flavored crisco

1 1/2 Tbs sour cream

1 tsp lemon juice

1 c. sugar

2 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Blend it all. My mom does it in a blender. I use a mixing bowl and beaters.

Turn into a greased or PAMed bread loaf pan.

Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes.

Me: Where’s the bathroom?

Her: By the bar.

Me: My mother taught me to always pee before an adventure.

Her: That’s a good plan.

[A few minutes later.]

Me: Does the smoke ever bother you?

Hostess: [coughs for a while] I swear on my mom’s life that was real. Can I get you some champagne?

Me: I’m going to get some whiskey at the bar. If one is going to see a Scottish play-inspired piece, one should have Scottish whiskey.

Her: Yes.

[I hear multiple people ask her where the bathroom is.]

Me: You know–it would make your job easier if we hung the head of a traitor here. We could hang a sign on him that says where the bathroom is.

Her: I enjoy you.

[I get called into the performance space.]

Me: I wish you could go with me. Goodbye, dearest partner in greatness!

Her: [taking my hand] Goodbye, whiskey girl!

Yesterday, I had delicious cuban food, saw Oklahoma and Hannah Gadsby’s Douglas. (It was FREEZING in the second theater, and now I feel gross after spending 2.5 hours there.)

Today, I’m working on my presentation, meeting with a former student for breakfast, and then heading into Central Park. I’m hitting the Neue for sure. And then my back will decide if we’re doing the Met, which won last night’s informal poll.

And then: I get to go to a comedy club and see one of my former comedy students perform!

Today, I have set up appointments to meet with six former students who want to get advice for classes to take, for improving their writing further, for choosing a grad program, for life.

It’s Summer Session 2. I honestly can’t remember the last time I took a summer session off.* After many long years, I finally am. (Not the whole summer, mind you; I just got back from an intensive Summer Abroad course, teaching 8 units in 4 weeks.)

But I’m still answering messages from my students. And I’m still going to pay to park so I can hold some office hours to help them.**

Having office hours requires an office.

So imagine my distress to learn that in the current bargaining session with my union, you have proposed taking my office away.

The laws (and you) require that I keep my students’ confidentiality. As I’m sure you understand, students bring up confidential information when they meet with me. We discuss their grades, their health problems, their hesitation in coming out to their parents, their sometimes difficult relationships with other people here.

I am required to keep this information confidential, so I need an office.

Common decency requires that other things be kept confidential, though the law doesn’t say anything about it. Sometimes, they’re homesick, crying, angry, despondent. They tell me about how their dreams are being crushed, how their parents don’t want them to pursue what they care about, how they need help fighting for a new dream.

Honor requires me to keep this confidential, so I need an office.

You say I could do all of this without my own office, that I just need a locker. What about the student who needs to talk through how to survive college now that her parents have been deported? The student who is being sent back to China after failing too many classes? The student who doesn’t know how to talk about how he used to cut himself, but wants to try?

Yes, these students should talk to counselors, but some of them are told they have to wait to do so. And, quite frankly, they often come to me first. And in emergencies, I walk them to the counseling center.

It’s vital that these students can come to me in a safe location, not just try to catch me at my locker, so I need an office.

You require me to be a mandatory reporter, so I need an office.

You require me to keep any projects (which are confidential) they haven’t picked up for a year, so I need an office.

I teach twice as many classes (more actually, with the independent studies and freshman seminars) as my tenured peers, which requires lots of office hours, so I need an office.

Speaking of independent studies, the classroom for them is my office, so I need an office.***

Since I prepare syllabi and grade essays and grade homework, I need an office.

Half of the students in my always-full office hours are former students. Many of them end up asking me for letters of recommendation and for mentoring.

Since I still meet with and write for those former students, I need an office.

I am currently in charge of the Upper Division Composition Exam. Hundreds of confidential files live in my office and, at certain times of year, need to be spread out all over my desk. Lots of confidential conversations about the exam happen there as well. Thus, I need an office.

(There is a staff person assigned to assist me with the Upper Division Composition Exam. It would be awkward if I didn’t have an office but she did, so I need an office.)

I serve on several campus committees, so I need an office.

All of the grad students in my building have offices, whether they’re teaching or not, whether they’re staying away from campus for the quarter or not. I work with some of them. The idea that I would have to go to their office to talk about their dissertations because the university sees them (but not me) as deserving of one is absurd, so I need an office.

I am an official mentor for the Guardian program, so I need an office.

I am an unofficial mentor for lots of other students, many of whom encounter me through the work I do with STEP, so I need an office.

I am the faculty adviser for a student group; I am with the students at least once a week, so I need an office.

When I publish the peer-reviewed journal I edit, “UC Davis” is behind my name. When I publish articles and books (I have two books coming out this year!), “UC Davis” is behind my name. When I present at conferences (nine this calendar year!), “UC Davis” is behind my name. When give guest lectures, “UC Davis” is behind my name.

Taking away my office implies that my research has no value here, even though you’re happy to feature that work in your publicity.

I’m assuming you would rather I keep saying “UC Davis” instead of “Independent Scholar” when I do these things, so I need an office.

To keep my job, you require that my teaching be “excellent.”**** What makes me “excellent” is the time and attention I give my students, not just my in-class performance. To remain excellent, I need an office.

I am an award-winning teacher, partially because I have an office in which to do all of these things.

My fellow lecturers in this system all do much more than just teach and go home. We care about our students–we work with them, listen to them, guide them, and inspire them, and we strive for excellence in everything we do, so we need offices.

Endnotes:

*This letter is not about how you only pay me 60% of my class rate when I teach in the summer, even though I have to do the same amount of work as I do in a regular term.

**This letter is not about how you charge me hundreds of dollars to park at work every year.

***This letter is not about how the students pay you to do independent studies with me but how you not only refuse to pay me, you refuse to consider these extra courses when I ask for raises. It is also not about how you’re trying to change the guidelines so I can never get another merit raise again.

****This letter is not about how you are also trying to change my contract to say that I can be fired at any time, with no notice or cause.

Students, if you’re reading this and wondering whom to talk to about how all of your teachers, not just tenure-track professors, need offices, here’s where to start:

Professor Kristin Lagattuta, Chair, Academic Senate, 402 Mrak Hall,
University of California, Davis, 95616, (530) 752-4919, aschair@ucdavis.edu

Gary May, Chancellor, Fifth Floor, Mrak Hall, University of California, Davis
(530) 752-2065, chancellor@ucdavis.edu

Janet Napolitano, President, University of California, 1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor, Oakland, CA 94607, president@ucop.edu

Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor, State Capitol, Suite 1114, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916) 445-8994, https://ltg.ca.gov/contact/

Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0004,
Tel: (916) 319 2004, https://lcmspubcontact.lc.ca.gov/PublicLCMS/ContactPopup.php?district=AD04

Senator Bill Dodd, State Capitol, Room 4032, Sacramento,  CA  95814, (916) 651-4003, https://sd03.senate.ca.gov/contact

[If you’re not from Davis, you can look up their representatives here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov]

“No one else is here,” he said. “Do you want to see the private rooms?”

Of course I did.

The official tour of the old Theatre Royal in Bath was at an end. The tour guide and I had spent a delightful hour and a half together already, since no one else showed up.

The Theatre Royal got its name because it got a royal seal–it was the first theatre to do so outside of London, which legitimized it. It opened in 1750 and had to undergo a lot of renovations–there just weren’t enough seats to fill the demand, especially when a young actress called Sarah Siddons took the stage.

The theatre closed in 1805, but the building became a Catholic Chapel in 1809 (to 1863). Catholics in Protestant England at this time were not allowed to be buried in consecrated public ground, so they were buried in the basement.

The spirit of the theatre held, though, since one of the priests was a famous orator; non-Catholics would attend his homilies just to hear him.

In 1865, the Masons made the building their home in Bath. Unfortunately, after WWII bombing damaged the building, the city wanted to demolish it. The Masons raised enough money from within to save the building themselves.

I hadn’t known much about Masons before taking this tour. I mean, I’d seen the Stonecutter episode of The Simpsons, but that’s about it.

Luckily, my lovely guide was a Mason. He explained that the reputation for secrecy came from Masons in long-ago centuries always being in danger of being kidnapped. Were you a rich man who wanted a castle or a wall but you didn’t have a Mason? Apparently the answer was to steal one. Thus, the secret meetings and handshakes were to keep themselves safe.

Today, the Masons are largely a philanthropic organization.

I learned The Knights Templar are an arm of the Masons.

Besides getting to be in a Templar prayer room, the Masons’ private meeting room, and the basement of artifacts and old tombs, I was also shown a part of the building that has not been excavated or restored–it’s part of the basement too damaged from the bombings. There are certainly some ancient Catholic bodies there.

I am so thankful that the Masons have kept this building and its history alive.

And I’m even more thankful that no one else showed up for the tour.

Full days in Dublin: 4

Museums: 7 (The Little Museum of Dublin; The EPIC Immigration Museum; The Irish Whiskey Museum; Kilmainham Gaol; The Irish Famine Exhibition; Dublin Castle; Trinity College–the Library)

Visits to the excellent Dingle Whiskey Bar: 3

Trips to Nando’s: 2

Whiskeys I tried that I remembered to write down: 22 (Green Spot; Gold Spot; Dingle Whiskey; Teeling Small Batch; Writer’s Tears; The Temple Bar 12; Fercullen 14; Tullamore Dew; Powers; Bushmill’s Red Bush; Whistler Blue Note; Connemara Original; Teeling Brabarzon; Irishman; Knappogue Castle 14; Poit Dhubh 21; Dubliner; Teeling Small Batch; Benrioch 10; Liberties Oak Devil; Jameson Caskamates; Grace O’Malley)

(Best: Gold Spot. Worst: Temple Bar)

Bartenders who put so much ice in my whiskey that it just tasted like cold: 1

Whiskey shop workers who must have thought I didn’t like whiskey since they kept trying to recommend liquors and “mixing” whiskey: 1

Bartenders at the Dakota who made my night by recommending good whiskey, providing great conversations, and being concerned enough about me getting dinner to look up my hotel on his phone to see if they would still be serving by the time I got back: 1

Awful meads tried: 1 (Kinsale Atlantic Dry Mead)

Decent gins tried: 1 (Chinnery Dublin Dry Gin)

Vegetables tried: many

Quality, tasty vegetables consumed: 0

Overheard conversations in which a woman referred to eating raw red bell peppers with the same sort of disgust usually reserved for hearing about someone else’s illegal kinks: 1

Posh Hotels: 1

Awesome conferences presented at: 1

Old poems about Anubis found: 1

Terrible colds: 1

Seasons of Star Trek Discovery binged once I realized that it is accessible on Netflix when I’m overseas, when I was trying not to have a cold: 1.5

Terrible days of diarrhea: 1

Cabbies taking me to the airport who expressed a desire for my nails to rip open their shirts and rake their back during sex who totally went for a hug when helping me with the bags: 1

When you go the Little Museum of Dublin, as you should, you’ll book a tour time for the main rooms–give yourself some time before or after to explore the other rooms, though.

The Little Museum, situated in a Georgian house, has over 5000 artifacts of city life donated to the museum by Dubliners. The 30-minute tour gives visitors an overview of some of the more important ones, tied to important incidents in Dublin’s history. The other artifacts are stacked around the museum, so peek into every case and every corner.

A few of the rooms are themed–there’s a U2 room, an Irish Times room, and a room devoted to Alfie Bryne, Lord Mayor and Shaking Hand of Dublin.

Yesterday in Conversations with my ER doc:

Him: So I see in your chart that the disc problems are chronic. What are you doing for treatment at the pain clinic?

(I tell him.)

Him: I don’t understand. What makes today an “emergency”?

Me: Today I can’t dress myself or go into a standing position on my own. My goal for today is to get back to being barely functional. I’m not asking you to cure me, but my son should not have to help me go to the bathroom.

There are days when pain wakes me up.*

But most mornings start with a cat or an alarm.

There are a few moments between sleep and waking–when the sleep paralysis is still wearing off, when my whole body doesn’t know it hurts. But then the pain rises. My trigger points** feel like they’ve been burned in a kitchen accident. My back tells me whether I will limp, whether I will be able to bend over; my neck tells me whether I can turn my head. I stretch, hoping that the muscles under my scapula and my calves won’t start to seize, but since I haven’t had my morning muscle relaxers, they do.

I check to see if something will give–my right ankle usually pops, as does an arthritic toe. Sometime my neck cracks; every once in a while, my sacrum does.

My lungs and eyes and nose tell me about the pollen levels before I see the weather report.

It takes a moment before I can turn on the light or check my phone, because my hands are either still asleep or frozen into a claw, which is what someone with Viking Hand (Dupuytren disease) has all the time.***

This whole time, a song has been playing in my head, because one always is.**** It’s usually the same song that has been playing all night, there when a cat jumps on the bed, when my arm falls too asleep for me to stay asleep.

Karma Trivia

*When my asthma wasn’t under control (before I had insurance), I would often wake up in a dream about orchestras tuning up–it was actually the wheezing in my lungs.

**We have given up on trigger point injections. Not just because they don’t really work–also because the last two doctors who tried them couldn’t get the needles in–my muscles were too tight. And the more they pushed, the more my muscles would spasm. One doctor, looking at my back, asked me if I’d seen Alien. I assured him that an alien was not going to jump out at him, even if it looked like it might.

***It’s a heritable disease that runs in Scandinavian families. My grandfather had it.

****Having a song in your head all the time (as opposed to the occasional earworms) is now understood as a form of OCD. This morning’s song, the Carpenters’ version of “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” inspired the title of this post.