WKNO

I started listening to WKNO-fm, NPR for the MidSouth, a couple of years ago. I realized that I didn’t get the newspaper, I don’t like watching TV news, and I wasn’t reading about current events online. Basically, I was unaware of what was going on in the U.S. and the wider world. And, for a citizen in a democracy, that is frankly unacceptable. I started listening to be more informed, but I quickly found that there were human interest stories that I enjoyed. Recently, podcasts have become my “adult conversation” during afternoons with the baby when I need a break from narrating my every move to fill the silence. Pop Culture Happy Hour and Planet Money are two of my favorites. I downloaded the NPR One app a few months ago and have been using it to listen to Ask Me Another and This American Life. NPR entertains me, and WKNO brings them to me daily.

The fact that I started listening roughly two years ago means that I’ve listened to multiple on-air pledge drives. Despite hearing the pleas of the WKNO staff and volunteers, this week was my first time to pledge. It was easy, and it was the right thing to do. I support public radio because it adds value to my daily life. I also got a NPR pint glass out of the deal, which is pretty freaking sweet.

NPR pint glass from the WKNO FM website: http://wknofm.org/thank-you-gifts
NPR pint glass from the WKNO FM website: http://wknofm.org/thank-you-gifts 

Dirt Therapy

It’s another dreary, overcast day, which, as always, put me in a funk. This general funkiness was compounded by the fact that I was tired, the kid was screaming for lunch, and the dog was whining incessantly for whatever he didn’t have right then. I was about ready to mentally shut down and throw a blanket over my head. Not that that would have solved any problems, but it would have felt nice to disappear for a moment. Then the baby finally fell asleep, and the dog had gone in and out enough times to satisfy whatever canine imperative he was feeling.

For a moment there was silence, and yet the funk persisted. So I went outside and planted pansies in my front flower bed. I have no idea what I’m doing when I plant flowers. I never remember to water them, and I never seem to plant them in the right location. Basically, it’s by sheer evolutionary design that any pretty plant is able to survive living in my yard. It’s a personal goal to get better at growing flowers, but for today, the simple act of putting them in the ground made me feel better. I eschewed my gloves and went for the soggy earth with my fingernails. I dug holes, loosened roots and firmed them into the ground. Then I hit the raised bed and pulled out the cherry tomato plants. I planted kale seeds a few weeks ago so I thinned those seedlings and also replanted the areas where none had sprouted. Where the tomatoes were, I planted collard greens. The basil is still going strong, so I am going to leave it in the bed until I make pizza or the first frost, whichever happens first.

It’s still dreary outside, but I smell slightly loamy and feel much happier.

A Verse for the Pink Palace

Mark Doty (and his publisher) were incredibly nice to let me put his poem on the Pink Palace blog:

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

The Pink Palace serves many functions —a place to collect and care for objects related to the MidSouth, an educational facility, a venue to get married and a motivation for creative works. Mark Doty is one person whose visit to the museum inspired a personal interpretation. Doty is a well-respected contemporary poet who currently teaches at Rochester University in addition to writing. His poems and prose works won the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry, a T.S. Eliot Prize in the United Kingdom and many other commendations. He included the poem “The Pink Palace” in his first published book titled Turtle. Swan.
Youth Department 6

The Pink Palace

My father would take me, Saturdays,
to an unfinished mansion: a rich eccentric
had built a few rooms and a facade
of pink granite before the money ran out
and the fragments became property of the state,
a museum for children. Of what
I’m not…

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Dreary

It’s dreary today, and I’m under the weather in the literal and figurative senses of the phrase. I have whatever stomach bug the baby had earlier this week, and the rainy day has me feeling extra tired.

But there is tea and Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. And Greg got chili going this morning and has taken over the baby wrangling. So it is dreary but
with some hefty rays of sunshine.

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Disaster Planning—The Undead Protocol

I am ridiculously proud of my latest post on the Pink Palace blog. Just ridiculously:

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

A disaster preparedness and emergency response plan is considered to be a core document for professional museum operations. The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) states that a good disaster plan needs to be specific to a museum’s facilities, cover all relevant risks, include evacuation plans and state how the collections will be protected during a catastrophe. It also should delegate responsibilities for staff members. As an accredited museum, the Pink Palace has a disaster plan that clearly establishes what should be done in the event of natural disasters, manmade problems and uprisings of the undead.

Zombie palace

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, all museum personnel will be notified by the administration that the undead protocol will be going into effect. While the staff moves to their assigned locations, the security guards will alert visitors via the speaker system that they should move in an orderly fashion towards the CTI 3D…

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Peace

I want to capture and hold the absolute peace I feel when I rock my baby at bedtime. After his bath, after the lotion, after the pajamas are on, after the breastfeeding, after the story. When I hold him against my chest and use my right hand to rub the back of his head and sing him his lullaby, the world makes sense. For a moment, there is nothing else. There is me and my baby. There is our chair and our song. There are small murmurs and snuggles in. There is peace.

Friends of the Library

We Carricos are officially Friends of the Memphis Public Library. It’s no secret that I love our library. I put books on hold, have books sent from other branches, and shop in Second Editions (the used bookstore inside the Central branch). Noah played baby bingo this summer and was given a free board book for a prize. I participated in their Explore Memphis program for adults, which I hope they will work the kinks out of and try again. I download my five free songs a week through the library’s subscription to Freegal, and I check out ebooks from the relative comfort of my desk chair.

I also use the archives frequently. So frequently, in fact, that I have gotten to know several of the archivists on a first name basis. I can say with certainty that they are some of the nicest, most qualified people I have met in my researching. Honestly, I cannot sing their praises quite loudly or often enough. The Memphis and Shelby County Room (where the archives are housed) also has fantastic equipment available to researchers. I’m talking about a digital microfilm scanner. DIGITAL. Any historian out there knows the magnitude of this equipment. You can zoom in on specific areas and save the images to a zip drive. That means no more reams of copy paper that must be read through a magnifying glass.

Then there are all the library resources that I don’t use–classes for teenagers, job fairs, technology classes, computer access. These are fantastic resources for the Memphis community, and we are happy support them.

Basically, we love the library. Our kid is going to grow up having access to one of the coolest children’s libraries and learning about the world through afternoons spent grabbing whatever book catches his eye. We are happy to be their Friends.

IMG_0848.JPGThe picture above is the Benjamin Hooks (Central) Branch Light Veil atrium sculpture by Ed Carpenter. You can see more photographs of the piece and read his artist statement on the Urban Art Commission’s website.

Tom “Midtown is Memphis” Foster Draws the Palace

My latest post on the Pink Palace blog about the postcards I found in our magic filing cabinet (MFC):

palacesocial's avatarThe Pink Palace Family of Museums

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In 1979, Memphis artist Tom Foster drew a series of cartoon postcards for the Pink Palace. Foster is an accomplished local artist who had drawn courtroom trials, album covers, comic books and theater sets. He trained at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Memphis and Memphis College of Art. After school, Foster worked professionally as a courtroom artist, art director for WMC TV-5 and a graphics coordinator for the University of Memphis. In the 1990s, he decided to become a free-lancer and eventually self-published several books of his work. Arguably his best known work is his collaboration on the original “Midtown is Memphis” bumper sticker.

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Foster drew these postcards soon after the museum’s 1977 expansion and featured the then brand new exhibits. Some of the exhibits, like the log cabin and the drug store, are still on display. Others, such as the eagle exhibit and the tree, have…

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Rhythm

Now that I’ve been a mom to a child outside of my body for eight and half months, I’ve been doing some thinking about what’s changed. Other than everything. Lots of aspects of our lives are remarkably different from what they were a year ago. We ate dinner at 7 o’clock last night, after the kid was in bed, and could barely get over the fact that there was no crying or violent banging of the high chair in demand of puffs. Sleeping in is when the baby decides to stretch his sleep to 7AM; tripping over an ill placed toy is a frequent occurrence.

I think the thing that has struck me the most is the change to the rhythm of my life. I have always set the pace for myself. And that pace is fast. I like to move–physically and mentally. I cram as much into a day as possible, walking fast to get there and reading quickly to get to the next novel. I always have; in fact, I cannot remember a point in my life when I did not have somewhere to be or a complex day to plan.

Until now. To be fair, I still have places to be and a desire to be there on time. I go to work and church. I have meetings and classes to teach. But I do them on a different rhythm than I did before I had my kid. Where my days were hyper structured to make sure that nothing fell through the cracks, they are now fluid. Today I want to respond to my students, go buy milk, organize some paperwork, do laundry and replenish the baby food supply, but it doesn’t matter what order it happens in, or if I’m being honest with myself, at all. (Other than the baby food unless I want a thoroughly displeased baby tomorrow, and the replying to students because that’s my job.) I find that when I try to move too fast, chaos ensues. Instead of making things “easier” it makes them stressful. And if I moved through my day at the pace I did before my child came, I would miss so much joy. I use to be a multitasker in the extreme, but I would rather just play with my baby than try to read a novel while keeping him entertained. There are always points in the day when I find myself holding a baby and trying to cook or sitting a screaming infant on the floor so that I can do something with two hands. But that is life. My life. With its new rhythm.