Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm back in Corvallis. Seasons are almost a little startling here - I was gone for seven days, and upon my return I found that the already decidedly green town is even more leafy than before. Go Spring! Or Summer, as I guess the case now is. The trees outside my window are almost unrecognisable, they became a completely different shade of green while I was away.

It is a bittersweet homecoming for me because we're actually leaving Corvallis for good on Friday. I'm not sure that it has entirely sunk in yet, but I am making sure to fit in some of my favourite Corvallis activities while I still can.

Some much needed greenery and tofu from Cafe Yumm

Dutch Bros and a good book

Yoghurt Extreme - this time I opted for the sugar free yoghurt with fresh fruit (if only because I expect this won't be the only Yoghurt Extreme visit this week).

Regular Scheduled Programming

After our weekend of excitement, it was time for Georgia to make her way across the country to Boston (east coast, boo hiss!), and so we've reverted back to our antisocial routine of books and coffee. I'm spending some time on the prairies with Annie Proulx, and if you're interested in the Cliff's Notes version of these short stories, let me just say that it is very hot and sandy, the people are very poor, and everybody dies. The end! I love the mythical quality of the plains and the West in America, and almost no one does it better than Annie.

Mid-week Round-up

What's happening here this week?

1. You may remember tales of railway wanderings over the weekend - I neglected to mention that we decided to resurrect one of Paul's childhood pastimes and leave a quarter on the track, to see if we could come back and find it after the next train. We went back down to the tracks today, and look what we found. Flat as a tack!

2. Tonight, like the good little hausfrau I am, I went to a bookclub at the Grass Roots Bookstore downtown. We talked about The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, and while I didn't love it, it is always (or, usually) a pleasure to talk to people and to listen to people talk about books. I was also able to gather proof for my theory that all book club meetings must include a person who says "I just didn't get the point of it", and a person who relates the plot of the book to overly personal details of their own lives, usually starting sentences with "I had a therapist once who said...". Still, that's to be expected (according to theory, anyway), so it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the conversation. Next month's selection, A Novel Bookstore, looks good so I think I'll go back again if we're not out of town.

3. It wouldn't be a blog post without a food photo, would it? After book club, I met up with Paul and we headed to Squirrel's, the irresistibly-named downtown brew pub. I think I came across this place by googling "squirrels Corvallis", back when we first got here and I was trying to work out where all the damn squirrels were hiding. Google couldn't tell me, but it did lead us to a nice veggie burger, some nachos and a sample of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale. I have to say, this town is a beer lover's paradise and I am making a poor effort to sample all the brews on offer! Perhaps that should be next week's project?

Totes Hectose Friday Night

We're both a little sick and Paul's busy with school work, so the evening has been spent at home amongst much nose blowing and tea drinking. I'm back with the Shelleys, although sadly I have reached the point in Mary's biography where Percy is no longer with us. From Mary's journal (excerpted by Muriel Spark):

For eight years I communicated, with unlimited freedom, with one whose genius, far transcending mine, awakened and guided my thoughts. I conversed with him; rectified my errors of judgement; obtained new lights from him; and my mind was satisfied. Now I am alone - oh, how alone! The stars may behold my tears, & the winds drink my sighs; but my thoughts are a sealed treasure, which I can confide to none (...) But can I express all I feel? Have I the talent to give words to thoughts and feelings that, as a tempest, hurry me along? Is this the sand that the ever-flowing sea of thought would impress indelibly? Alas! I am alone.

 Certainly appropriate reading for a rainy evening.

Inclement Weather

The weather is still not conducive to outdoor wanderings, so we've retreated with our books and laptops to the Memorial Union Commons on campus (which, henceforth, shall be referred to as the Gryffindor Common Room). Paul is writing a paper on Descartes and The Matrix, and I am "helping" by spouting crap about philosophers I've never read.

Rainy Thursday

Spring seems to be coming in fits and starts - the past couple of days have been cold and rainy. Perfect weather for lingering in a coffee shop over a book (perfect for me, anyway. Paul was lingering in a not-so-leisurely fashion over a philosophy paper after 6 hours of class). And yes, my coffee was served in a World's Best Granddad mug today.

I woke up this morning intending to get started on some pre-dissertation reading, but like all good procrastinators I went to the shelf and instead of picking up the mid-20th Century American novelist I was supposed to be reading, I chose to land myself in 19th Century Europe with Muriel Spark's excellent bio of Mary Shelley. I am a big fan of Mary Shelley but have to confess to being vague on her biographical details (apart from, of course, that career-making soiree at Chateau Byron), so I've no idea where this biography stands in the wider world of Shelley scholarship, but I'm enjoying it nonethless. It's even working to dispel my notion of Percy Shelley as a bit of a cad. Their romance, and the tragedy of their lives together, what with all the children they lost and drama of their family life, is compelling and sad.

Of the completion of Percy's relentless work on the poem, The Revolt of Islam, Spark writes:

Other poets have told of the anguish of returning from the visionary world to the visible. But it was to Mary that Shelley returned, with a kind of exhausted relief; and he dedicated his poem to her:

So now my summer task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

Not exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, but I can't help it, I love the Romantics.