Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I’ve been working out a variety of recipes lately, in preparation for Thanksgiving. Yes, I know it’s only March, but I’m expecting upwards of thirty people for dinner (if everyone shows up) and a couple of dozen relatives in town for the weekend. I’m only going to cook two meals a day, brunch and supper, both of which will have to accomodate vegetarians, possibly vegans. Quiche doesn’t fit the bill for vegans, but it’s a simple option that’s not too far out for the omnivores. It’s also a good way to eat your broccoli. Anyway, here it is:

Broccoli, Cheese, & Mushroom Quiche

1 pie crust (I used a frozen one this time, thawed out according to package directions, but not prebaked)
4 eggs
1 C. milk
1/2 C. finely chopped mixed mushrooms (I used a mezzaluna knife to do this; very simple and easier than getting out the food processer)
1/2 C. finely chopped broccoli (likewise mezzalunna’d)
1 C. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 t. mustard powder
Salt & pepper to taste

Put the crust in a 9″ pie pan. Layer the broccoli, mushrooms and cheese in the shell. Beat the egg together with the milk, mustard, salt, and pepper. Pour the egg mixture into the shell. Sprinkle a little bit of cheese over the top, if you like, to get a nicely browned top crust. Bake at 375 degrees F for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let it stand for a few minutes before serving.

My shoulder, which had previously been giving me grief, is much improved after a visit to the doctor. I have an inflamed AC joint, which is where the clavicle hooks into the shoulder. As much as it actually hooks in–the doc gave me a quick overview of the Anatomy of the Shoulder, and as the joint is actually held together by muscles, it does not actually “hook into” anything.

The practical upshot of this was a prescription anti-inflammatory, which is doing a wonderful job. I felt better almost immediately–which was quite a relief, as I was getting to the point of not being able to lift heavy things, like a glass of water. The down side of the ’scrip is that I can’t take aspirin with it…and that means I can’t take my migraine drug of choice. Tylenol just doesn’t do the job, and I went home early on Friday, trying to figure out a way to chew off my own head. I missed my Friday night D & D game because I didn’t even want to get out of bed, let alone attempt driving to the south side of town. I had a headche hangover most of Saturday, too.

But my arm works, and that is certainly a good thing.

A dangerous combination if there ever was one. This charming bit of verse comes to me via my friend Alisa, who is used to be a lawyer for a state agency that shall remain nameless.

William L. FISHER Plaintiff Appellant,
v.
Karen LOWE, Larry Moffet and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, Defendants Appellees.

Docket No. 60732.
Court of Appeals of Michigan.
Submitted Nov. 3, 1982.
Decided Jan. 10, 1983.
Released for Publication May 6, 1983.

A wayward Chevy struck a tree
Whose owner sued defendants three.
He sued car’s owner, driver too,
And insurer for what was due
For his oak tree that now may bear
A lasting need for tender care.
The Oakland County Circuit Court,
John N. O’Brien, J., set forth
The judgment that defendants sought
And quickly an appeal was brought.
Court of Appeals, J.H. Gillis, J.,
Gave thought and then had this to say:
1) There is no liability
Since No Fault grants immunity;
2) No jurisdiction can be found
Where process service is unsound;
And thus the judgment, as it’s termed,
Is due to be, and is,
Affirmed.

[1] AUTOMOBILES k251.13
48Ak251.13

Defendant’s Chevy struck a tree
There was no liability;
The No Fault Act comes into play
As owner and the driver say;
Barred by the Act’s immunity,
No suit in tort will aid the tree;
Although the oak’s in disarray,
No court can make defendants pay,
M.C.L.A. 500.3135.

[2] PROCESS k4
313k4

No jurisdiction could be found
Where process service was unsound;
In personam jurisdiction
Was not even legal fiction
Where plaintiff failed to well comply
With rules of court that did apply.
GCR 1963, 105.4.

J.H. GILLIS, Judge.
We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest
Upon a mangled tree’s behest;
A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy’s crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;
A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must uphold the court’s decree.
Affirmed.(1)

(1) Plaintiff commenced this action in tort against defendants Lowe and Moffet for damage to his “beautiful oak tree” caused when defendant Lowe struck it while operating defendant Moffet’s automobile. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants pursuant to GCR 1963, 117.2(1). In addition, the trial court denied plaintiff’s request to enter a default judgment against the insurer of the automobile, defendant State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. Plaintiff appeals as of right.

The trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of defendants Lowe and Moffet. Defendants were immune from tort liability for damage to the tree pursuant to 3135 of the no fault insurance act. M.C.L. 500.3135; M.S.A. 24.13135.

The trial court did not err in refusing to enter a default judgment against State Farm. Since it is undisputed that plaintiff did not serve process upon State Farm in accordance with the court rules, the court did not obtain personal jurisdiction over the insurer. GCR 1963, 105.4.

MSN.com has the following headline from Discovery Channel:

“U. S. Marine Chickens Die in Kuwait”

I had no idea you could teach chickens to swim. Do marine chickens taste like chicken, or fish? Is the U. S. the only country with marine chickens, or can you find the species elsewhere? And does this explain mystery meat?

Don’t even get me started on sea cows…

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been having increasing pain in my right shoulder and upper arm. I suspect it’s got to do with the total lack of ergonomics in my work space. Anyway, I’ve finally called the doctor and I have an appointment for tomorrow. If I don’t write much in the next few days, don’t take it personally. I’m just resting.

This started out as a comment on Turbulent Velvet’s response to Dorothea’s rant on academia. However, once I got going, it seemed more appropriate to move it here. So…

Hi. My name is Li and I’m a recovering graduate student.

I made the mistake of going to graduate school because I wanted to study a really interesting subject, not because I wanted to become a professional academic. I had a lot of ups and downs in the 2 1/2 years I put in. I was also in sporadic contact with Dorothea at this time, from Indiana, while she was in graduate school in Wisconsin. I wish that we had both put in the the effort to keep in closer contact, but as we know, graduate school is rather a black hole for one’s attention. All this leads up to me knowing what I’m talking about.

After I completed my coursework, I was too run down to finish my master’s degree. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I went in to learn, and learn I did. Some of it even had to do with the material I was studying. I left town, got myself a job and a life, and I haven’t looked back. The truth is, I would’ve been a lousy academic anyway–one of my profs told me so, and meant it as a compliment at the time. Am I bitter? Not really, no more than I am about other random bits of stupidity perpetrated by anyone else in other situations. Do I consider myself a loser? Not at all. Oh, there are things I miss about grad school, mostly the constant intellectual stimulation shared with people who were studying the same thing I was. But I don’t feel that I was unworthy of academia, anymore than I feel unworthy of professional hockey because I’m short, out of shape, and can’t skate backwards. For me, it isn’t a question of success or failure. I survived with minimal brain damage, and I learned, and I chose to move on.

Are there problems inherent in the American academic system? You bet there are! Are there some really great people who stick it out anyway? Yes! Sounds like we’re all agreed on those two points. So, the system is broken in places, but not irretrievably evil. The real question is–What problems can we fix, and how? You can make a list of individual problems, of course, but I think that most of them would be symptoms, rather than causes. The underlying problem seems to be that academia is both a place to learn and a place to have a career, and these two goals are not always compatible. Hence professors who hate to teach and grad students who take home $65 a semester doing it for them because it’s training.

One of the things that I did was to make an effort to understand the system and learn how to work it to my advantage. By a comical twist of fate, I ended up as the president of my department’s graduate student organization. (I went to the bathroom during the voting. Came back and found myself elected. Seriously.) I also ended up on the executive committee of the university GSO. How? I showed up to the meetings. One of the things that I learned in the course of that adventure is that graduate students are each other’s best support. Get your ass out of the library and go to a departmental student organization meeting. Or, if you’re really ambitious, plan one. Take advantage of these resources!

Agitating from the outside is good–and it can draw attention to problems, demand solutions. Agitating from the inside is good too, and often just as effective. Now, I realize that it isn’t for everyone, but the least you can do is vote for your departmental reps, and support them when they go out on a limb for you and your classmates. You may feel that you have to compete with your fellow students, but if you ever venture out of academia–even if it’s just a temporary, part time retail job–you’re going to be expected to work as part of a team. Learn how to work with your peers, your professors, your department head, and your department’s support staff. Start learning how to do that now. Trust me on this. Back your fellow students when they’re against a wall, and they’re more likely to do the same for you. Treat the departmental secretary like a human being and a coworker–s/he may not have a doctorate, but you can bet s/he knows what’s going on in your department’s politics, and that knowledge is worth having! Remember, it’s not just school, it’s a workplace, too.

Also, I think that graduate student unionization can improve the quality of life for graduate students more than anything else I can think of. The capacity to take abuse and live on ramen noodles has nothing to do with your intellectual prowess, but a lot to do with being a successful grad student. How the hell are you supposed to learn anything when you’re stressed out, worried about money, and exhausted? Best of all, this is action that grad students can take themselves–no need to rely on the very system that is home to the problems to solve them.

And if all else comes to naught, consider the possibility that you may not be cut out for academia. There’s nothing wrong with that, I promise you–just as there’s nothing wrong with not being cut out for the NBA, the Metropolitan Opera, or Microsoft. It’s not a character defect, a failing, or anything to be ashamed of. Anyone who tries to make you feel bad about leaving grad school is either defending a system in which s/he has a stake because s/he succeeded in it–which is a normal and reasonable thing to do–or an asshole. I’m not going to say that the two are mutually exclusive, mind you, but it’s not 100% overlap, either.

Finally, let’s keep in mind that the people are the system. It may look like a huge, mysterious monolith from the outside, but once you get inside, you can see the weak points, the strong points, and the ways to change it. With the right motivation, people can and will make changes.

I can tell that the PMS is bad when I’m getting on my own nerves…often to the point where I don’t want to be in the same room as me. Still trying to figure out how to accomplish that, though. If I come up with something brilliant, I’ll let you know. Perhaps two weeks on a beach somewhere quiet and sunny would do the trick. Of course, that’s about as likely to happen as me winning the lottery–given that the former is dependant on the latter.

Ed’s teaching tonight, and won’t be home until late–which is probably for the best. I can curl up with a book and a bottle of Midol and ignore the rest of the world.

Earlier this month, I complained about the automated facilities in the building where I work.

I have yet to experience a stunning change of attitude regarding said facilities. Why not? Because the women’s restroom is actually more of a mess than it was when you could flush at will. Oh, it’s entirely possible that there is a way to “manually” flush the toilets, but the design is such that you would have to have won a prestigious design award in order to figure out how. As a result, I have seen far too much of the end results of other people’s digestion, because the automatic flush hasn’t been happening.

The can’t-turn-it-off problem also applies to one of the sinks, which runs incessantly one day a week…today. Again, there’s no way to take matters into your own hands and turn the damned thing off. Not even by trying to wash your hands in it, which works for all the other sinks.

Ginger asks…

Have you ever played with someone who cheated? (Fudging dice rolls or implying greater powers than they really had, or some other abuse of in-game trust?) How did you handle it? How would you recommend it be handled?

I haven’t encountered this unpleasantness in its most blatant form since high school for the most part, and my solution was to cheat right along with ‘em. If the GM let everyone else get away with it, why shouldn’t I? It got old fairly quickly, and I left the group at a convenient point in the campaign. The rampant cheating was a result of flagrant disregard for the rules on everyone’s part–including and especially the GM. Very munchkiny and not fun.

I used to have a tendency to save old containers–yogurt containers, especially, but also margarine tubs, salsa jars, and the like. Yogurt containers are great–I can use the cups to hold rinse water for brushes when I’m painting, and the leftover lids make great impromptu coasters. (One of which is under my peppermill, nicely containing the inevitable mess.)

Two things have really cut back on that habit; the first is the availability of curbside recycling in my neighborhood (finally!). The second was my grandmother’s mayonnaise jar collection. Back in the mid/late 1990s, after my grandfather died, most of the family–by which I mean me, my parents, my aunt, uncle, and their two younger kids, and my other aunt and uncle and their kids–gathered in Springfield, Illinois to help my grandmother clear out the house. And the basement. And the garage. And the storage unit. (I have half a dozen stories just about the sheer quantity of stuff, but I’ll save them for later. Suffice to say that it took over 2 years and several gatherings to accomplish the task.)

Allow me to set the scene–An extended family, seated on the linoleum floor, positioned in front of a bank of lower cabinets. They are surrounded by massive quantities of old rubber bands, digital watches that don’t work, an amazing assortment of ballpoint pens (working and non), and more paperclips than one human being could ever need in three lifetimes. A beloved and exhausted grandmother sits in a folding chair nearby, surveying her beloved progeny as they rifle through lidless margarine tubs of a vintage older than some of the grandchildren. Her middle child (it’s always the middle child) opens a cabinet and discovers a few dozen clean, empty glass mayonnaise jars.

“Into the recycling bin!” cried the assorted progeny.

“No!” my grandmother objected.

“Why not?” asked my long-suffering aunt, the middle child.

“They’re a good size,” my grandmother explained triumphantly.

“A good size for what?” my mother and aunt shot back in unison.

“Mayonnaise!”

(Just as an aside, I have to mention that at this time, despite the fact that she around 80, my grandmother had absolutely no age-related dementia. Just the normal kind that runs in the family.)

I went home and threw away every single jar, bottle, and tub I had saved in the past seven years. Also old rubber bands, pens that didn’t work, cardboard boxes, bits of string, and a lot of wire hangers. (I don’t even know how I ended up with wire hangers. I always get the plastic ones, and I send stuff to the dry cleaners about once every eight years.)

I’d still like to know what mayonnaise jars are a good size for–other than mayonnaise, of course.