Pertinent to my Interests

Documentary reviews, body neutrality, parenting, Jupiter, piano, cats, European history, ghosts, rodents, the collapse of civilization, and if this goes on long enough I'll probably end up cataloguing my entire smushed penny collection.

  • Abu Simbel

    Have you heard about the temple complex at Abu Simbel in Egypt? It’s one of those things I get really excited about, and I just read a book about it so I want to talk about it!

    The temple complex at Abu Simbel is a magnificent set of two temples on the edge of the River Nile in an area called Nubia, near Egypt’s present-day southern border. The temples were dedicated by Pharaoh Ramses II in 1244 BCE. The smaller temple is dedicated to his favorite wife, Nefertari, but the larger temple is dedicated to Ramses himself. The facade is comprised of four colossal seated statues of the pharaoh–65 feet tall each and carved directly into the sandstone cliffs of the Nile. The colossi face east and every morning the rising sun lights up the statues, bringing Ramses II back to life again and again and again.

    Ramses II died thirty years after dedicating the temples at Abu Simbel. At some point the complex is abandoned and the literal sands of time cover the surviving three colossi, until the 19th century when the temple is rediscovered by European explorers. The complex is praised as one of the most stunning examples of ancient Egyptian art and architecture.

    We arrive at the 1960s. The Egyptian government is going to build a new dam on the Nile River, the Aswan High Dam. This new dam will allow them to control the annual flooding of the Nile, and also provide electricity for the Egyptian people.

    The only problem is that the reservoir created by the new dam will flood much of Nubia. Villages will have to be moved, many small temples will be drowned, and the magnificent temple complex at Abu Simbel is destined to be lost again, this time forever.

    At the behest of Egyptologists and the Egyptian government, UNESCO steps in, launching a campaign to fund the preservation of the threatened Nubian monuments. Schoolchildren send in their pennies. Widows send in their francs. Wealthy businessmen write cheques, but it is not enough. Far more money is needed.

    Egypt decides to sweeten the deal. From the list of twenty or so threatened monuments, they pick five of the smaller temples. These temples will be given away to the nations that provide the most funds for this project. Caligula brought only an Egyptian obelisk back to Rome, but you could have your own temple in your capital city!

    Now the funds start flowing. Germany and Italy step up to the plate, agreeing to donate large sums to the fund. France and the Netherlands follow. Workers flow into Nubia and begin dismantling and moving the smaller temples.

    But not Abu Simbel.

    Nobody is sure what to do with Abu Simbel. It is significantly larger than any of the other threatened temples, and–most importantly–it is carved of sandstone directly into the cliff. It cannot be cut into pieces without massive damage. So what to do? They consider floating the whole thing up. They consider building a glass bubble around it to protect the structure from the water. But there is no viable plan, and besides, they don’t have the funds for it. Abu Simbel is just too much: too big, too expensive, too difficult.

    Enter Jackie Kennedy, First Lady of the United States.

    At this point, the US government has been minimally involved in the project to save the Nubian monuments. The Cold War is at its height, the current president of Egypt has aligned himself with the Soviets, and Congress has deemed the entire project unworthy of their time or money.

    But Jackie Kennedy, like her husband, is a voracious reader, a great student of history. She has a deep appreciation for art and archaeology, and she insists to her husband that Abu Simbel must be saved and that the United States must lead the effort.

    Of course it takes more than just a first lady’s insistence to wrangle that kind of money out of the government. There is a great deal of political maneuvering and debating, but eventually the United States steps up an donates a very large sum of money for the rescue of Abu Simbel.

    By this point, the Aswan High Dam is partially complete, and the river is rising. Time is running out to save Abu Simbel. But how?

    They cut it apart. It shouldn’t have been done, but they had to do it. They cut up the cliff using large machinery. The colossi and other delicate pieces are cut apart with hand saws by skilled stonemasons from Italy. Each block is stabilized, marked, and slowly (so slowly!) brought up the hill.

    Did you need to go reread that last paragraph? Those crazy motherfuckers cut the whole thing apart and moved it to the top of the hill. It couldn’t be done. It shouldn’t have even been attempted, but they did it.

    And you know what they did after they cut it apart? They put it back together! They rebuilt the colossi, the cliff face, the inner temple structure, the whole damn thing. They even made sure to orient the statues facing east again so Ramses II could be reborn in the dawn light, just as he had been every morning for the past three thousand years.

    I just love everything about this story. I love that in ancient Egypt a city of workers sprung up in the desert near Abu Simbel and they carved this magnificent temple into the cliff over the course of several years. I love that three thousand years later another city of engineers and stonemasons sprung up again, this time with a mission to preserve the work of their ancient counterparts. I love that nations that did not exist–nations in places that Ramses II could never even dream of, speaking languages he never heard–stepped up to the plate to save this ancient structure.

    You all know the poem Ozymandias by Shelley, right? It is one of my favorites, a reminder that there is no eternal glory. But Shelley was writing before Abu Simbel was moved, back when it seemed there was no eternal life. The colossi stand today on the banks of a changed Nile in a changed world, and Ramses II still commands our modern awe.

    If you are losing your mind over this like I am, please go enjoy this great UNESCO video about the rescue operation. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

  • She (maybe) chose poorly.

    I went to the gym today, after more than a week away due to illness.

    It doesn’t take much to keep me from the gym. If I experience even the smallest little bump in the road of life my exercise plans are the first things to be thrown out the window.

    Had a bad dream? Better skip the gym.

    Missing a key ingredient for dinner and have to take ten minutes out of my not-busy day to run to the grocery store? Better skip the gym just in case.

    Cat seems extra gassy today? Better skip the gym.

    Because of this proclivity, I often struggle to determine when it is appropriate to skip the workout and when I’m just taking advantage of having a sniffle. I don’t feel great today, but I made myself go walk on the treadmill for forty minutes and I gotta say I kind of feel worse now. I may have chosen poorly.

  • Fun-sized character studies

    My youngest had a sore throat on Monday, and I ended up taking him to the doctor twice in one 24-hour period.

    I didn’t used to be this mom. I used to be the mom who let illnesses develop for at least three days before even calling the nurse line. I used to be the mom who secretly judged the other moms who were taking their kids to urgent care at the first sign of fever. But after three rounds of strep throat diagnoses in a single month, I am now a crazy person.

    I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that my youngest has started dressing in business casual for school: button up shirts and suit jackets. Some days he pairs this with sweatpants and dirty Crocs and the effect is hilarious. Other days he’s got the khaki pants going and he looks really good.

    At urgent care check-in on Monday night he was still wearing his suit jacket and nice shirt from school. When we walked up to the desk the receptionist went on and on about what a little man he was.

    “It’s not just the clothes,” she said. “It’s how he walks and talks and carries himself too.” She sighed and lamented that she would not be able to see him grow up. I assured her we would be back to urgent care many times in the next ten years.

    The next day we were at a regular clinic to see a pediatrician we had never seen before. This receptionist also had a lot to say, but this time it was about my kid’s recurrent strep.

    “You had strep three times in one month?” he exclaimed, looking at my youngest’s records. “Oh, that sucks. I had the same thing happen. They wanted to take out my tonsils and I was like oh no you don’t.”

    “Why didn’t you want your tonsils out?” I asked.

    “Have you ever met someone who had their tonsils out in their forties?” he said. “It takes like two full months to recover! When you’re a kid they just give you ice cream and you’re fine in two days, but when you’re adult it’s like ‘naaaaahhhhh I’m gonna need some Percocet sprinkled on that ice cream.’”

    The last character in our journey was the nurse at the clinic, a very large man who seemed to be having some trouble breathing. He took my kid’s blood pressure and commented that he wished his blood pressure was that low.

    “Well, it probably was that low when you were eight years old,” I said.

    “Nah, I loved chips too much even back then,” he chuckled. He then went on for several sentences about how much he loves salt. I nodded along, enjoying the obesity camaraderie (rare at a doctor’s office).

    I do enjoy these little fun-sized character studies, especially in settings where you expect people to be more boring and professional.

  • Living deliberately

    I don’t usually listen to podcasts, but my kids’ piano teacher (who blogs over at Midlife Creative) recommended this one to me and I can’t stop thinking about it.

    The podcast is about a class taught at UPenn, Living Deliberately: Monks, Saints, and the Contemplative Life. Students in this class are asked to live as if they are part of a religious order. The list of restrictions is long, and surprisingly strict. Men must wear white and women must wear black. No eating meat unless you’ve killed it yourself. No drinking alcohol unless you’ve brewed it yourself. No sex. No touching. No talking. No technology.

    No exceptions.

    How do busy college students make these rules work for them? Well, it takes a lot of preparation, but they are serious about it and you should really listen to the podcast for all the details, it’s fascinating.

    I’ve been thinking about something the professor said when introducing the concept for this class. In the modern world we tend to deal with our mental health issues by adding things: therapy, meditation, exercise, medication, vegetables. But what if we need the opposite: to take things away?

    Did your mind jump to your phone when you read that last sentence? Mine did. My stupid fucking smart phone.

    My phone is a tranquilizer, anti-depressant, and upper all in one. If I am still, I am probably looking at my phone. If I am bored, I am looking at my phone. If I’m tired, I’m looking at my phone. If I’m uncomfortable, I’m looking at my phone. If I’m anxious, well, you get it. Mindlessly scrolling through stupid reels in Instagram is my first reaction to everything. My phone is a drug.

    But my phone isn’t all bad! My phone allows the school to get in touch with me if there’s an emergency with the kids. It is how I contact my mother, who lives 1,500 miles away. It’s how I take pictures of the kids and the cats, and how I manage our online photo album. Even Instagram–that awful, awful waste of time–has some wonderful influencers who have given me great insights and genuinely improved my life with their content.

    But I keep circling back to that podcast and how much the students gained when they took things away, even good, important things like talking to friends or writing a research paper on a computer.

    I’ve been inspired, but I’m going to start small like the class does. Yesterday morning I had my husband enact a five minute limit on my Instagram, set with a password that only he knows. I’ll still be able to post to this blog’s Instagram account, but not much else. No more mindlessly scrolling through reels in the late afternoon.

    I’ve also made a new rule for myself: no watching a screen unless I’m watching with someone else or I’m at the gym. This means I can’t watch hours of old Friends episodes every night like I’ve been doing. I can’t start a documentary while eating lunch and finish it later that afternoon while my to do list and my creativity idles.

    These seem like small changes, but they feel big to me. Yesterday I kept pulling my phone out of my pocket and sliding it back in. At lunch I ate my sandwich with nothing in front of me and thought about how so many girls in my generation have the middle names Lynn or Marie. I think I’m going to be awkwardly sitting around doing nothing for a while.

    I can still play Nintendo whenever I want and watch Bob’s Burgers with my kids every night so it’s not like I’m really living a monastic life over here. But I’m hoping to live each moment just slightly more deliberately than I have been.

  • M&Ms

    I’m starting to enjoy peanut M&Ms and I am a little embarrassed about it.

    My natal family is an M&M family. My grandma loved plain M&Ms, my mom loves plain M&Ms. Plain M&Ms were my toddlerhood potty training reward and my little brother famously referred to them as “num nums” for many years. I still put about 10-15 of them in the tiny dessert section of my own kids’ bento boxes when I pack school lunches.

    And then there’s peanut butter M&Ms. I still remember the first time I had peanut butter M&Ms. It must have been 1992 or 1993 and I was at the local waterpark with my friend Brie. We sat in the grass and smashed the peanut butter M&Ms into our knees before eating them (why???). They were delicious, and my love of peanut butter M&Ms has not diminished since that beautiful day.

    But peanut M&Ms? They’re terrible. You might as well just eat stupid peanuts, which are the second least enjoyable nut unless converted into butter form. For years we have discarded all those little yellow peanut M&M bags my kids get while trick or treating. But this year I found myself pulling them out of the bowl of rejected candy one by one.

    “Ah,” I would think to myself. “A nice little protein and chocolate snack! And not too sweet! Perfect!”

    Is this what happens to all old people? Sweet things become too sweet? You realize you only have so much enjoyment of the world left before death and you want to stretch it out as much as possible by only eating crap candy?

    Grey hair I was prepared for. Sagging body parts, yes, I knew this was coming. But appreciation for peanut M&Ms? Someone should have warned me.

  • Costco

    Every time I drop off junk at Goodwill I swing by Costco on my way home. The irony is not lost on me.

    What a horrible warehouse of wonders. I’m not even talking about all their Christmas decorations. The snack aisles alone are enough to make me gleeful (welcome home, giant box of Cheez-Its!). They have puzzles too! The kind I like with nostalgic small-town scenes poorly painted by some “folk artist.” They have Squishmallows and smoked salmon and pumpkin pies that are larger than both of my cats combined.

    But… why does it have to be so much? They had my favorite mouthwash but it came in a three pack of very large bottles. I would like to try the frozen crab cakes, but I do not want to try them every night for more than a week.

    It’s not just a space issue, although space is an issue. Buying food at Costco is a commitment. You go in for pesto for this one great recipe and now you’re struggling to find pesto recipes for the next two weeks. I bought pupusas there last summer and nobody in the house liked them (including me) but I was stuck eating them for lunches for almost two weeks because I didn’t want to just throw them away. I can’t afford to make a mistake like that again; life is too short to not enjoy your lunch.

    And don’t get me started on the consumerism. When I was there today there was a couple looking at Christmas-themed welcome mats. The woman was asking the man if he remembered what their current Christmas mat looked like and was wondering out loud if they should get this cute one instead. Um, if you already own a Christmas welcome mat do you really need another one? Then you’re just bringing your old mat to Goodwill and the cycle starts all over again.

  • Boiler problems

    We went up to our cabin this past weekend and walked in to discover that for the third time in eighteen months we had experienced a complete boiler failure.

    The details on all of this bore me at this point so I’ll try to give the short history for those who don’t know it:

    1. In April 2022 we arrived at the cabin to discover the old 1970s boiler was not working, and would not turn on. Luckily it hadn’t been super cold recently, there was no damage beyond the boiler itself, and we had a brand new boiler installed before the end of May that year.
    2. In December 2022 we arrived at the cabin to discover that our new boiler had completely failed and the cabin had been without heat for several days during a deep freeze. There was massive damage throughout the cabin: radiators had burst everywhere, the toilet tank had cracked in half, plumbing throughout the cabin was destroyed, and the cast iron well pump had cracked in half. This was a total disaster, the cabin was unusable, and we did not get everything fixed until right before Memorial Day Weekend 2023.
    3. It is now November 2023 and the boiler isn’t working again despite the fact that we had someone come out and give it a check up just a month ago. My husband–a genius–had mini-split units installed in the bedrooms this year, so we have set those to heat mode and are using those to heat the cabin until someone can come out and look at the stupid boiler.

    Anyway, after three boiler failures in a row I did what any normal person would do and upon returning home I immediately googled “how to appease the house spirits” because at this point angry cabin fairies are the only logical explanation for this.

    So if you come to my cabin this summer and spot a little jar of honey and little jar of cream on the hearth just know that it’s an offering for the house fairies and that all these boiler issues have caused me to lose my effing mind.

  • Time & Memory, a follow up

    I wanted to follow up on my recent post about reading all the Life magazine issues from 1963.

    I am fascinated by the nature of time, how the present tumbles into the faraway past in mere seconds. We lived in New York City in our early twenties; it has only been eleven years since we moved away, but it feels more like several lifetimes ago. On the other hand, I have a very clear memory of sitting on the couch at my grandma’s house reading magazines while my sister and cousin and grandparents play a card game at the dining room table. This must have been around 1997, but it feels like exactly yesterday.

    Sometimes I freeze and look around and think about how this present moment will be a really faraway moment someday. Right now we’re eating donuts at the new playground, but will my kids drive by this same playground in twenty years and think back on this time when the playground was new and they were still young?

    Then I lay in bed and do time math and freak myself out about things.

    Bobby Kennedy was killed in 1968, and I was born in 1983. Only fifteen years separates his death from my life. Fifteen years! There are about fifteen years between my youngest son’s birthday and the September 11 attacks. Fifteen years might as well be fifteen seconds! Fifteen years is nothing!

    My mother was born in 1955, just ten years after World War II ended. In 1955 there were Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans walking around who were in their 30s. There are very few of either of those left now, and I would guess most of them are not walking very well anymore.

    I remember reading history books as a kid in the 1990s and thinking the 70s were ancient history, but I did the math the other day and realized that in the 90s and the 70s were only TWENTY YEARS APART. DID EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY KNOW THIS?!?

    In 1991 when the Cold War ended my second grade teacher gathered us all up in a circle and explained what was going on, and she said to us “This is a really important moment in history; you’ll always remember this moment.” I, being seven years old and not an enthusiastic newspaper reader at the time, didn’t even really understand what the Cold War was or why I should care that it was over, but I did take note of the moment. I still think of Ms. Teeley whenever I see the Berlin Wall come down in a documentary.

    “I was alive when this happened!” I think to myself. “I remember being a person when this happened!”

    This post has gone off the rails. I could really go on about this for paragraphs, and probably will in the future.

    But will the paragraphs feel like seconds or decades?

  • 2023 Resolutions

    I’m not usually big on making resolutions at the new year, but this year I had three goals that kind of naturally bubbled to the surface of my brain.

    With less than eight weeks left in 2023, now seems like a good time to do a progress report.

    Goal #1 – Push harder on my workouts
    I was really in a rut with my exercise and didn’t get started on this project until I joined the gym in early March. Having access to all this cardio equipment really reinvigorated my routine, and I am proud to report success on this goal.

    I am also saddened to report that achievement of this goal is ongoing. It turns out I can’t just flip a switch in my body and have all my workouts be stellar. I have to force myself to push it every time and it sucks. I hate it. But I like I how feel when I do it.
    Status: Accomplished/Ongoing

    Goal #2 – Start a blog
    Note I did not give myself any requirement for monetization or readership or posting a certain number of times, or even having it all coded and set up properly. I literally just had to start a blog and tell my friends about it.
    Status: Accomplished

    Goal #3 – Get a job
    Note also that this goal has no standards attached, and yet this is the one I still can’t check off the list. I have been looking! If the goal had been “look at job listings at least once a week all year” I would have been able to mark it complete.

    I find it easy (fun even!) to look at job listings and difficult to apply. Looking means I get to engage in a fantasy wherein I picture myself breezing out the door in stylish work clothes and appearing in an office where I solve everyone’s problems all the time and come home feeling accomplished and important.

    Applying means thinking about the reality of a job. What do the kids do after school? How do I get there and how long does it take? When does grocery shopping and meal planning happen? Will I have to stop blogging and going to the gym? These obstacles can be overcome, and I know that. But without someone else kicking me in the butt to get a damn job it’s hard to nudge me out of my comfort zone of 8 AM grocery shopping on Monday morning.
    Status: Not Accomplished

  • 1963

    A few months ago I read all the Life magazines from 1963.

    1963 was an interesting year. There was an eclipse and a new pope. Prayer in schools was the divisive issue of the day. Beer can technology was changing quickly (at least according to all the Schlitz ads), and long-distance calls were the new way to keep in touch with faraway friends and family. An article about a disturbing new teenage trend of party crashing made me laugh out loud.

    There is something about these articles and advertisements that reminds me of my grandparents and especially of their home. Their house was filled with Reader’s Digest condensed books and vintage Tupperware; it was a highway to the past, full of souvenirs of two long lives, well-lived.

    Here, the cake topper from Grandpa’s 60th birthday party in 1990. On the countertop, an Amway dish soap bottle purchased from a cousin in the 1980s. On the bookshelf, a memoir about a good Christian family adopting four difficult children, published 1960. Over here, wooden clogs made by my grandfather’s grandfather, perhaps from the 1930s.

    Flipping through the pages of 1963 reminded me of a time when my grandparents were alive, when they were traveling, when they were raising children and buying books and Tupperware. When they worriedly discussed prayer in school and wondered if President Kennedy was going to get his tax cuts through Congress. I turn the page and see an advertisement for the exact encyclopedia set my grandparents had in the sewing room. Did they see this same ad?

    This is the feeling I was seeking when I worked on that archaeological dig in Greece. I would gently uncover a terracotta lamp from the floor of the tomb, hold it in my hands, and wonder at the last person who held that lamp. Who made it. Who treasured it. But they were unknowable, unseeable, their experience too far from mine. Thousands of pot sherds and never once did I conjure up a connection with those Roman families from two-thousand years ago.

    But 1963 is so much closer. Why, it was practically yesterday that my grandma went to the store and bought that new 1970s era Christmas candy dish. A blink of an eye separates her from me in the churn of generations coming and going, and it seems that in mere seconds my own grandchildren will tumble through this front door and break this same vintage candy dish and complain about how old all my books are.

    How will the next generation travel through time to get to me? What will be their equivalent of reading Life magazines? Will they get out the vintage Nintendo Switch and load up my Animal Crossing island? Watch documentaries produced in the 2020s? Read this blog?

    (Old Life magazines are available on Google Books if you’re interested.)