Jamieson Ridenhour

We spent last weekend visiting our good friends Margee and Deaver down in Spearfish, South Dakota. Margee was my office-mate at USC–we went through the PhD program a year apart and so shared a few classes as well as planning and putting on two graduate conferences. We got to be close with them while in Columbia, shared the experience of being on the job market together, and then by a strange coincidence ended up each in one of the Dakotas. Margee is a Victorianist at Black Hills State, and Deaver is the director of the Writing Center there. My job sounds somewhat better, but they definitely got the more beautiful place to live.

Margee and Deaver always take good care of us–good food, movies and games, etc. This time we also went south from Spearfish and did some outdoor adventuring. We went to Bear Country USA (cheesy, but the kids liked it), saw Mt. Rushmore, camped at Custer State Park (and went swimming in Center Lake), and toured through Wind Cave, one of the largest cave systems in the world.

Here’s the kids with Rushmore in the background.
Rushmore was iconic, big, and impressive, but ultimately it’s more than a little irritating to see the Black Hills defaced in such an extravagant manner. It was much more fun roasting marshmallows around the campfire and looking at buffalo as we drove towards Wind Cave.

A really fun time was had by all. And I ripped a bunch of CDs from Margee, who has stuff by all the people I should have listened to five to ten years ago, as well as old stuff from my childhood (who’d have thought I’d be nostalgic for Cyndi Lauper?).

Now we’re home, a mere six hour drive. We’re leaving for a three week trip to the Carolinas next Thursday, so we’re trying to get the house and yard in leaveable condition–which mainly means mowing and mowing and mowing the 2 acres of grass and tumbleweed. One of my students is house, dog, and garden sitting for us. It will be really good to see our families and we’ll also have time to visit with some friends in Columbia and Hendersonville.

The book is still slogging along, but very slowly. I’m truly anxious about finishing on time. I’ve hired a student as an assistant to help with proofreading and with securing rights to illustrations, and Gwyn is diligently hand-drawing the maps (she’s working on them while I type this). But ultimately, I’ve got to write another 15,000 words or so, and I’m having trouble getting it done. I’ll be working in the morning while we’re with family, but it still looks dubious. We’ll see what happens.

I’ll sign off now. Scrubs is on…

A quick post to put up some pics (nice alliteration, huh?).

Here’s the finished patio:

And here’s some of Gwyn working on the kid’s gardens last weekend:

The kids have planted sunflowers, cosmos, marigolds, carrots, zinnia, and other lovely species of flora. We’ve had lots of rain, which bodes well for their crops.

Well, that was a long break. For much of it, I was in London, and was blogging over at the Live From London blog.

Since returning I’ve hosted my parents over Memorial Day weekend and then prepared for and executed Eva’s 4th birthday, which was a rousing success. Ian’s 7th is next week, followed by Gwyn’s 35th in July and my (gulp) 38th in August. Then we’re done aging for another year.

The patio got finished, though Pat the friendly concrete contractor was actually Pat the charge-you-more-than-the-initial-quote-and-then-refuse-to-clean-up-the-large-amounts-of -debris-generated-by-your-project-guy-in-disguise. He moonlights as he-who-doesn’t-return-calls-or-show-up-when-you-rearrange-your-
schedule-to-accommodate-him as well, so he’s pretty versatile. I’d say that if you’re having concrete-y things contracted in Bismarck or Mandan, don’t use Pat.

But the patio looks good, which is what matters. I’ll post a pic soon, ’cause I know you’re jonesin’ to see it.

I’ve also got a few things I want to say about the experience of being in London again, which I’ll post over the next few weeks. London has such a deep effect on me. I always journal while I’m there, but this time I tried to think about the whys and hows. Not sure it worked, but I’ll transcribe some of that soon. Actually, I’m sure what I’ll do is begin to transcribe and then think of better ways to say things and edit/revise. But some version of my London-induced state of mind will be sprayed across your screen like graffiti soon.

I’m trying now to get back into a routine working on the London book. The amount of work left to do on that is nearly overwhelming at this point. I’ve been despairing over the deadline–it can conceivably be extended, but my teaching schedule is the reason I’m behind already, so I don’t like the idea of pushing into the fall semester. Plus I’ve got a contract to do an edition of Carmilla for Valancourt Press that’s due in August of ‘08, so I need to start working on that in the fall.

So that’s my biggest concern right now, which will get worked out. I’ll either finish by August 15th or I won’t, and that’ll be it. Wish me luck.

The weather here is beautiful, after almost a week of heavy rain. Today is 73 and sunny, blue skies and a slight breeze. I hope I can get out in it later.

Hope you’re having a grand June so far. I’ll talk to you soon…