From Camelot to Zumbaland

 

Friday, February 22, 2013 – From Camelot to Zumbaland

Has it really been over 8 days since I’ve sat down to write?  I guess the past week has been quite hectic for both of us.  Over the Presidents’ Day weekend, Elisa and Christian came down from New York for a short visit.  We did lots of cooking and eating while they were here – simple food, but healthy and tasty:  turbot with roasted tomatoes and panko breadcrumbs, garlicky broccoli rabe with Parmesan, and pumpkin bread with hand-chopped chocolate “chips” made from a single origin 70% chocolate bar. 

Aside from entertaining visitors, I’m just trying to keep up with Elliott.  In spite of his nagging lower back pain, he’s been spending hours and hours everyday on the second bathroom remodeling project.  Between researching vanities on the computer, running out to Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the tile showroom, or removing old tile and grout, he’s constantly busy, and I have to remind him occasionally to stop and take a break.

As Elliott’s chauffeur and fellow-researcher, I’ve put in a lot of time on the project as well.  And I haven’t avoided the physical labor either.  Today Elliott has given me a job that involves spackling and sanding.  So for a change of pace, I welcomed the recent opportunity to do a couple of days of subbing at Camelot, a nearby elementary school, where I worked in a multi-grade deaf and hard of hearing classroom.  It was challenging and fun at the same time, and it brought back memories of when Elisa and Matt were much younger.  I really admire elementary school teachers who have seven (!) hours a day of direct student contact with instruction in every subject – math, science, social studies, and language arts.  How do they ever have time to plan and prepare their lessons and grade papers?  By comparison, when I was teaching in high school, I had fewer hours of student contact, I usually taught only two different ESOL subjects, and it was still a very demanding job.  Just thinking about it now makes me feel exhausted, and I wonder how I ever managed to work full-time. 

In addition to subbing, I’ve been trying to get back into an exercise routine after becoming somewhat sloth-like in the new year.  I started having sinus problems in mid-January and that sapped a lot of my energy.  Even when the infection cleared up, I kept making excuses for not heading to the gym.  Finally, I managed to overcome my inertia.  At first, I bundled up and took short walks outside, figuring that even 15 minutes of brisk walking was better than zero minutes of physical activity.  Eventually, I got back to the gym.  And this morning, suffering from PPOG (post pig-out guilt), I even tried a Zumba class for the first time.  It was an attempt to burn off the extra calories I consumed yesterday during my cookie baking session, which started out innocently enough.  I was trying to use up the leftover canned pumpkin that remained after Elisa and I baked the pumpkin bread last weekend.  So I modified my all-time favorite cookie recipe (it has an oatmeal-based dough) to incorporate the pumpkin.  After I filled up two cookies sheets and popped them into the oven, there was still plenty of dough left in the mixing bowl.  The spoon was just sitting there, so I decided to take a taste, and it was really good, so I took another taste, and then another, and then…well, you can guess what happened.  That raw cookie dough was so delicious.  There must be something addictive about the combination of sweet butter and brown sugar.  But enough of that for now.  If I don’t change the subject, I’ll rush back into the kitchen to eat the few remaining cookies.  

So, in my art history class, we’re still in the 15^th century, but we’ve moved north from Italy to Flanders, where oil painting rules, the style is meticulously detailed, and the surfaces are so smooth that no brushstrokes can be detected.  While the subjects are not exclusively religious, there are several important altarpieces that we’ve studied.  In the process, I’ve developed some knowledge of Christian iconography.  Without this class, I would have completely missed the symbolic meaning of the sheaf of wheat, the glass of water, the table, the three white lilies, the violets, the grape motif, the bare feet, the blown out candle, etc. in the Mérode and Portinari altarpieces.  I also now know the difference between an Annunciation and an Adoration.   

However, one of the paintings I found most intriguing is completely secular in subject.  It’s Jan van Eyck’s 1433 portrait entitled Man in a Red Turban.   

 

Is it a self-portrait? Why is he wearing that red shmattah wrapped around his head?  Was he having a bad hair day?  Or were turbans fashionable headgear for men in Flanders in the 15^th century?  (possibly because people didn’t take frequent showers back in those days and everyday was a bad hair day?)  And why red?  I brought up my questions in class, but my professor didn’t have any answers.  If I have time (ha!), I’ll try to get to the university library to do some research.