Happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo Baggins

Roads go ever, ever on

Today is the day that ought to have been my birthday, by all rights. Today is the first day of fall. More importantly, to my young self, today is Frodo and Bilbo Baggin’s collective birthday. Do you have any idea how much it would’ve mattered to me to be the SAME as those two notable halflings in such an important event? I used to try to work out with the time zones and Zaire (my place of birth) whether I had REALLY been born on the 22nd and this incontrovertible FACT was masked by my impossibly-distant place of birth. Or maybe bad record keeping. Or SOMETHING.

Of course now, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t have minded. I was three weeks later than expected. My due date was Labor Day. I used to think this just meant my mom was bad at counting, until I myself went a verifiable two weeks late with Grey. Sorry about that, mom.

Frodo, Fall and I all twine together for a brief period this time of year. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings, this birthday on September 22nd is a critical milestone throughout the books. It’s during a grand birthday that Bilbo disappears in a puff of smoke from Hobbiton. Years later, on that birthday, Frodo grabs his walking stick and three best friends and heads off on desperate, epic quests that make dragons look like child’s play.

Um, it’s possible that these books were just a TOUCH influential on my growing self, ok?

But this time of year brings out the itching in my feet, too. My drive in apparently got the memo about it being the first day of fall. The low places – the mist-covered swamps by the sides of the freeway – have already put out their scarlet and vermilion banners, in anticipation of hordes of tourists coming to admire. The trees are heavy with their fruits. Apples and pears weigh heavily on pregnant limbs, hoping for eventual homes in pies and pastries. The boundaries of my mind get less definite, and I’m mindful of Bilbo’s warning: the road in front of your door connects to all other places in the world. Who knows, by stepping on it, where you will end up?

I admit to inflicting Tolkien on my son at the youngest possible opportunity. His fourth birthday is still eagerly anticipated, but already you can hear him sing, if you listen carefully:

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said
The chances the changes are all yours to make
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

The greatest adventure is there if you are bold
Let go of the moment that life makes you hold
To measure the meaning can make you delay
It’s time you stop thinking and wasting the day.

Brownsmith

The summer we lived in Bonner’s Ferry, I was five, or maybe six. I remember that summer fondly — the first of the golden buzzing summers in the Northwest. I remember one of my favorite things to play: Brownstone. I would walk out of the house – on the side with the big tall trees toward town, not towards the deep forests – holding a full cup of water and a spoon. Then I would creep under the porch. There was dappled light down there; more than enough to see by, but not enough to nourish plants. It was just plain dirt. Not dirt with construction waste mixed in, or dirt with old roots, or rocky dirt. Just, well, dirt.

And with the consummate care of an artist, I would spend hours under there transforming that dirt into mud. There’s a particular delightful state of mud when it’s nearly solid, but the surface gleams with smooth moisture. I can see it a lifetime later in my mind’s eye. My goal was to create patties of this delightful stuff. I named myself a brownsmith. A blacksmith works with iron, but a brownsmith’s stuff is mud.

From the eyes of a parent, I have to suspect that what this looked like was an hour of silence followed by the need for a bath. Funnily enough, I don’t remember the baths at all. Just the way the mud looked.

Yesterday I had a reprieve from my usual schedule. A friend was coming, and she was bringing dinner. So instead of tying my children to my apron strings as I cooked a proper meal for them, we all sat in the front yard together. Thane sampled the tasty bubble rods. I drew an outline of Grey on the sidewalk and added antennae and a spaceship, having way more fun with it than he did. But finally he noticed the flowerbeds. I had mulched them, but they need loving care again. Apparently you have to deal with your lawn more than once or twice a summer — who knew? Anyway, he asked if he could dig in them. My first reaction was: no! You’ll mess up the flower beds.

Then I thought, “Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play in the dirt?” and I said yes.

Then he wanted to use some bricks to plant brick seeds that would grow into brick plants. And I thought, “What a mess this will make!?” and then I wondered. Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play with blocks in the dirt? So I said yes.

For 20 minutes my son happily built a brick hovel and piled intermixed dirt and mulch on top, while Thane sampled the fine vintage of grass clippings on the lawn. I played Bingo with him for the 30000th time. The sun shone dappled through the trees, and I remembered the dim recesses of Brownsmith.

Maybe tonight I’ll give Grey a spoon and a cup of water, too.

Enjoy your week of summer!

It’s hot here in the greater Boston area. The last three days it’s been in the low 90s during the day, high 70s at night with the standard miserable amount of humidity. It has been a very cold summer so far. This has been our first real heat wave, and given that we’re in the middle of August, there isn’t a whole lot of really hot possibilities left. We don’t have central air conditioning — instead we have four really big, really have box ACs that we usually put in the windows — cursing and sweating — somewhere in early July. They’re so obnoxious to install and then remove that we don’t put them in until we HAVE to. And now it seems a little late. All that effort for the remaining two or three weeks where it MIGHT be that hot? Turn on the overhead fans, and suffer, says I.

Then on Saturday in his good-night nursing, Thane seemed hot. Really hot. To the touch. All that night he seemed really hot. When we finally got around to taking his temperature, even after we’d administered Tylenol, it came in at 102.4. Ouch. 90 outside. 102.4 in your body. So you’d think that Thane would be super fussy and uncomfortable. Nah. He’s mellow and going with the flow, although he is a touch fussier than usual and is completely uninterested in food. (That’s ok — you don’t need to eat a ton all the time. I do, however, wish he was more interested in beverages. I think he’s at high risk for dehydration.)

So my helpful brother installed the AC in Thane’s room. It’s already one of my favorite rooms in the house. Now, however, I am trying to talk my husband into moving our bed there.

I’m working from home with Thane today. My brother took Grey to and (will) from daycare, and is pinch-hitting with Thane while I work. His temp was down to an unmedicated 99.9 this morning and 99.4 this afternoon, so he’s clearly on the mend. I might’ve sent him to daycare this time last year, but with the swine flu rooting around, it seems like the better thing to do to keep him home. My only regret is that work has AC.

I spent most of the weekend making jam. Ok, that’s not ACTUALLY true, but it feels true. On Saturday, after swimming lessons and before our trip to the pool I made a batch of strawberry jam from $2/pint organic strawberries from the Farmer’s Market outside the YMCA in Melrose. Then I made blueberry jam from our farmshare blueberries. Then I realized I’d totally underestimated just how much sugar jam takes and my paltry 5 lb bag was completed wiped out.

Sunday, my husband and Grey picked up more sugar and pectin for me after church. I put in a second batch of strawberry jam from the farmer’s market strawberries (strawberry is the jam of choice in our household). I have plans for two to three more batches. I have peaches, but I didn’t buy QUITE enough and I’m likely to get some from our farmshare tomorrow. Also, the peaches aren’t quite ripe, so they can stand another day or two of sitting around. I’m also planning on farmshare apricot jam. I got only about half the apricots I needed, so I processed them and will hopefully get another 20 apricots this week, which should be enough. My husband has requested marmalade, which I’ve never made before, so I may give that a shot, too.

So my jam count:
2 strawberry (completed)
1 blueberry (completed – unless I get a lot more farmshare blueberrries)
1 peach (fruit obtained)
1 apricot (50% fruit obtained)
1 marmalade (speculative)

I find jamming intensely satisfying. There is something about capturing the moment – about your hard work turning these ephemeral items into the durable, delicious product that I will eat for the rest of the year, share with friends, give as gifts, and feed my family with.

It’s also something I’ve done since I was a girl. My mom has been making raspberry jam every summer since well before I was, er, 6? I know we had raspberries in Prosser, and I think she planted them in Bonner’s Ferry. Fresh homemade jam plus fresh homemade bread is one of the great delights of summer.

When I stand stirring the dark jam, the hot sugar and fruit smell permeated the kitchen, with sweat beading out and darkening the small curls on the back of my neck, hearing the “pop” of the previous batch of jam setting. Well. Those are the moments that are the last to leave you when you look back on your life.

Choices

I could write posts, or I could upload and edit pictures. I chose the latter. I regret nothing.

The link to Picasa. The captions have made this infinitely more fun.

24 hours later one of these people was wearing a tux

20 years ago today

A friend whose anniversary it is rhetorically asked where we, the audience, were 20 years ago today. This got me remembering.

I was 10, almost 11. It would have been the summer between fifth and sixth grades, I think. We would’ve been out of school by now — kids these days seem to be in classes later than we were. That winter we had moved to the house that my parents still live in. I seem to remember a good deal of reading (specifically the “Sword of Shannara” which I’d been given as a graduation present), tromping through the woods, and swimming across the lake (too cold in June). I hadn’t learned to play trumpet yet. I hadn’t picked up my love of hiking. I’d never seen or heard a baseball game. The next year I’d get shipped across a mountain pass to Jr. High. There was a freedom to summers when I was a child which I suspect will be unreproducible in my children’s lives. My mother was a school teacher, so she was off summers. I’m sure she provided childcare, but I don’t really remember being actively taken care of. I remember the freedom and the roaming.

What about you? Where were you 20 years ago today?

My stomping grounds

My coming of age

A friend was recently talking about their graduation from college and how it had been a difficult and uprooting experience for them. That got me thinking about MY graduation from college. In retrospect, my graduation actually was a coming of age and a sweet memory to boot.

Let me set the stage. Four years prior, my father, brother and I had driven from Washington to Connecticut. (In four days. Another story for another time.) My mother had flown out to Connecticut to join us. They were dropping me off at Connecticut College, 3000 miles from home, where I knew no one. This graduation ceremony was the next time they came out. They brought with them my recently widower grandfather — the first time he’d flown since the 50s — and my godfather (he of the had-quintuple-bypass-surgery-yesterday fame).

I was 21. I had been engaged for just over a year and was going to get married in August. I had lined up a “real job” which I had already begun working at as a programmer.

The graduation ceremony itself was typical. Hot. Long speeches. Parents hearing for the first and last times the full names they had graced upon their children on their birth certificates. My litany read “Major in English (distinction) and Medieval Studies (honors and distinction), Cum Laude”. Not the most fantastic of bylines, but respectable. I was and am proud of it. My godfather bought me this truly remarkable frame for my diploma.

The coming of age, though, begins the next day. We had rented a van with room for my grandfather’s scooter, but no room for my fiancee. We started early in the morning. I remember as we pulled out onto Mohegan Drive, I had just gotten my thesis back and was digesting the comments thereon — my last college paper. (I was affronted to have gotten an A-. If he’d told me what he wanted earlier, I could’ve gotten a A. Pbbblft.)

We drove through the Connecticut countryside towards Worcester, where we had breakfast.

It’s funny, but there are moments where you transition. That breakfast was a great breakfast. We sat at a big table and ate eggs and bacon and talked. I recall that we got into a heated discussion on when gunpowder had been widely used in Europe. Then I sneaked away from the table. For my entire life, these people had taken care of me. They had fed me, housed me, clothed me, transported me. (Including my godfather.) I went to see the waitress, to pay the bill for my family’s breakfast. It was my way of saying, “Look at me. I’m a grownup too!” It had the desired satisfying outcome of amazing the assembled, and causing them to pause for a moment to think, “Why yes, she is a grownup.”

In an aside, while I was waiting to pay, a woman came up to me and asked if we were part of some history club. No. We’re just family. But man, I love that about my family.

After our desultory and educational meal, we went up 495 to Lowell and Lawrence. We went on a tour of the historic mills, saving up facts for future breakfast arguments. We stood in the bright May sun in the brick alleyways. I think of that part often. I now work in one of those old mill buildings like those we toured. The floorboards below my desk are nailed down with handmade nails and have captured, between the cracks, hundreds of tiny shoe-nails.

Thus educated, we wended our way up to St. Johnsbury Vermont where we stayed at a terrible dive of a motel. We didn’t always stay at terrible dives of motels growing up. No, sometimes, well often, we decided that it was too much work and just kept driving.

Starting the next morning in the Northwest corner of New England, we proceeded to drive through every New England state. We drove backroads across Vermont and New Hampshire up to Portland Maine, and then 95 down to Burlington MA where we had dinner with my beau. After dinner, we continued down 95 through Rhode Island, and I was deposited back in Connecticut.

There were some other moments — my grandfather slipping off a bar stool at Rosie’s in Groton and nearly killing himself, my parents taking me shopping for my graduation-present bicycle. But soon they left. I had a month or two of in-between time, after graduation and before my wedding. But it was on that trip with the folks who raised me that I stepped forward out of dependency and into full adulthood.

It was also the moment when my grandfather realized that 86 was too young to be bounded by two oceans. He started laying plans immediately, which culminated with him and my godfather going to Scotland for a month, where he wrecked a van, broke his leg, reconnected with long-lost relatives and generally had the time of his life. I was so glad that he had these opportunities, and so impressed at his willingness to take big risks in order to live out his life to the fullest.

April Fools Day

One April 1st I got a great one off on my friends. I was early in my pregnancy with my first child and was exuberantly sharing all those sorts of details pregnant women think other people find interesting. Then on April 1st I wrote about a doctors visit where to my great shock, I’d had an ultrasound that showed a second baby hiding behind the first! A Beta behind my Alpha!

I got ‘em but good. Everyone bought it, hook, line and sinker. My sister called up SO EXCITED! My friends told me about their experiences with twins, offered to connect me with parents of twins they knew and talked about appropriate naming conventions for twins.

It was one of my finer moments.

Sadly, they’re now all on to me. I could say, “I had Cheerios for breakfast” and on April 1st they’d probably quirk a skeptical eyebrow. Actually, last year I thought of delaying announcing my pregnancy until the first of April and make a real announcement when they would expect a fake announcement and then wouldn’t THAT confuse ‘em. But I couldn’t wait that long. (Actually, one of my coworkers did that exact thing today! Yay babies! My poor boss!)

My mom tells a story about how badly April Fools translated to Zaire. She and dad were at the hospital (?) and my sister was at home. A woman rushed up to them and told them that she’d been bitten by a venomous snake (a real danger). The woman kept the “hoax” going as long as she could, and for a terrible bit of time my parents thought my sister dead or dying of snakebite. The “April Fools” wasn’t so funny that time.

Two of my favorite hoaxes this year:
Gmail unveils a new tool (I assume)
An awesome new sleeping bag for the Star Wars afficionado (actually, this looks AWESOME – but the lack of a real warehouse is a bit of a tell)
Qualified new leadership for GM (this actually isn’t a bad idea….)

What about you? What’s the best hoax you’ve pulled off? What’s the best one you’ve had pulled on you? What’s the worst hoax you’ve encountered?

The trumpet player is mine!

What moment did you make your parents most proud?

I know mine. I was in 8th grade, and playing my very first season with the Pacific Northwest Youth Orchestra. When I auditioned there was a senior and a sophomore also on trumpet. I was thrilled, THRILLED to just be accepted.

The music for the season was picked expecting a very good first trumpet, a quite competent second trumpet and an extremely green third trumpet.

The senior dropped out before the first rehearsal. I never met her.

The sophomore stopped coming at some point, but only formally dropped out way, way, way too late.

We were playing Cappricio Italien by Tchaikovsky. For those of you who can’t automatically hum a few bars, the piece starts out with a big solo trumpet fanfare. Just trumpet. No strings. No one else. It is as bare and bald an entry as a trumpeter might ever hope to make. And midway through the season it became clear that the only person left to play it was little old 13 year old me.

I can just imagine what must’ve been going through the mind of my conductor at that point. It was too late to change the piece. They couldn’t bring in a ringer because they HAD a trumpeter. It was just about as unforgiving a situation as you could be in. I’m personally responsible for at least one box of Tums, I’m sure. Heck, it was unfair to me. What pressure for a girl barely into her teens! I’d been struggling with “Mary Had a Little Lamb” a scant two years prior! Not only did I have to learn a very difficult part, but I had to learn the first (instead of second) trumpet part. But they decided to make the best of it. (Not that anyone SAID this to me, mind.) The local trumpet teacher gave me free lessons and devotion. They encouraged me and taught me and crossed their fingers. By the time the concert rolled around, it was clear that I COULD play the part.

Playing it in a room for your teachers and orchestra members is one thing. Sitting in your folding chair in the high school auditorium while your orchestra conductor lifts her baton, and opening your first ever orchestral concert with a difficult solo? Not so easy. I remember noticing my trumpet teacher surreptitiously had her trumpet out. I don’t blame her. There was every chance I was going to either freeze or botch it. No one knew whether I was capable of pulling this off — least of all myself.

I remember the look in my conductor’s face as she lifted her baton. I’m pretty sure she was chanting some internal mantra version of “Come on… you can do it!” And down came the baton. I was ever so slightly behind the beat on that first note, but out it came, clear and clean. And the rest followed. And we were well into it. And I was totally and completely hooked on the life symphonic.

Of all the moments in my life, I know that was the one where my mother was the proudest of me. She knew how hard I had practiced and worked. She knew how difficult a thing was being asked of me. She knew how possible it was I would fail. She said that she wanted to stand on her chair and shout “The trumpet player is mine!”

I played plenty of big solos and hard pieces after that. But, truth be told, there are few pieces in the symphonic repertoire that expose the trumpet more than that first one I played. That was the day that I learned that I could exceed against great odds, and rejoice in the struggle.

I’m gonna get you little fishie!

My in laws live right next to the sea in Rhode Island. Many a time I’ve coerced my father in law and husband to take me fishing off the dock near them. And while they’ve pulled fish in by the bucket off that dock when I wasn’t there, in all my nearly dozen times fishing with them, we’ve never so much as had a strike. I have therefore accused my father in law of pulling a great hoax off on me — that there are no fish in the Atlantic Ocean.

Apparently, after two years worth of father’s day cards making this point, he got tired of it. He scheduled a charter fishing boat with a friend of his.

Thus it was that I found myself awake and drinking coffee at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am. I was astonished to find that the sun actually rises about that time of morning in June. I chalked it up to stuff I would have been happy never knowing first hand. Mike, Adam, Peter and I sped along, groggily in the New England morning, to a point as far away from their house as any two points in Rhode Island can possibly be. We arrived at Port Judith at 6:15.

Our boat for the day was to be the Twenty-Five — a capable 20 footer, captained by Craig and mated by Dean. While we passed up the chance to bet them about whether or not I’d get skunked (the way I figure it we’d already placed a $400 bet on that), we laid a friendly wager that Adam and I would catch more fish than Peter and Mike. (We tied)

The day was absolutely gorgeous — sunny with a blue sky and a brisk wind over the waters. Although the weather report called for highs in the 80s, in the cool of the morning we were glad for our long pants and jackets. It was a day tailor-made for fishing with one’s family.

The first place we fished, we brought in only one fish. Pete’s line was wrapped around its tail, but my bait was in its mouth. We judged it a tie, although Pete had gotten the fun of reeling him in. He was a sand shark — a theoretically endangered species that absolutely infested the waters off Block Island. We threw him and the rest of his brethren we pulled up back in. We constantly lost our bait to these menaces. Sometimes they’d nibble at it, so we’d start reeling in, and unhooked they’d follow our bait in and jump at it as we pulled it out of the water. We weren’t there long until we moved to a section of water other people seemed to be having luck in. As Mike so aptly put it, the allies had fewer boats invading on D-Day.

The current was strong, so we’d start at one spot, pass through a band of many fish, and then pass out of it and have to motor back to our original starting point. Peter brought in two beautiful striped bass, which I was highly impressed with. They were apparently average bass, though, to judge from our guides responses. I was green with jealousy. Then Adam got a strike. They thought it might be another sand shark, since it didn’t fight like a bass. But as they brought it up… it was a trophy flounder. And by trophy, I mean that the guides said “Wow!” for like 5 straight minutes and kept sneaking peeks at it in the hold. They said it was the biggest they’d ever brought in, and it was about twice as big as the other flounders we got later. It was 27.5 inches long (and pretty much that wide — flounder are pretty circular). I didn’t know it was possible to turn blue with jealousy, but I was! After that, we really only brought in sand sharks. (I did get one or two of those.)

We dropped our Mate off on Block Island for a guitar gig he had that night. Dean had become hardened. He was NOT going to send me home skunked! So he picked up a bait flounder and we headed to the beach. Adam and I slept on the bench in the middle, tired after long exertions and an early morning. This was difficult, as the boat kept catching air as it quickly skimmed over the white-caps, hard whipped by wind and tide.

We fished for a while at the beach (actually just off the beach), bracing ourselves against the rolling waves and whipping wind. We stared in envy as the boat next two us brought in flounder from right under our keel. We fished Mike’s hat out of the drink. I could tell Dean was getting worried. He confided to me that he had a last resort — cleaning the fish usually brought a good number around.

Dean was holding Adam’s pole while Adam, um, reveled in nature, and he got a strike. He passed the pole to me, and I reeled in a little sea bass — a cute thing with lots of fin and dark patterns. Although it was a legal catch — barely, we threw it back. Next year, my fishie friend! So that was ok, but I wanted my own strike. And then… a tell-tale jiggling of the tip. And for once, the fish did not cleverly evade my hook while eating my bait. No! I reeled in, and pulled up my very own average flounder! Oh frabjous day! And nearly simultaneously, Adam pulled in its twin brother. We were successful! Fishie fishie fishie!!! I even then caught another flounder which we threw back, and Peter another sea bass (this one too small to even be legal). We could stop now. We were successful.

And so, utterly exhausted but glowing with success and sea-sun, we returned to Port Judith. Now, I have a good 8 pound of freshest fish in my ‘fridge. (We took equal portions.) We cooked up some of the striped bass on arriving at the in-laws, and oh! It was good! I will cook some for dinner tonight, and perhaps even those who don’t like fish will be surprised at how much better freshly caught fish is than your usual fare!

I’m hoping we get to go again next year!

Daydreaming of Raspberries

This was a weekend of two daydreams — although the weekend was a wonderful dream in it’s own right.

Raspberries — wherever we’ve lived my mom has planted raspberries. (Man, it sounds nostalgic when you say it like that). My parents have a huge plot of raspberries where they are — which is constant need of weeding. It’s the only thing mom ever remembers to water. Every year, there are massive amounts of raspberries to be gathered. Mom and I would make raspberry jam together — even if we could only do so in the very brief vacations I came home. I would often go out and pick the raspberries in the cool of the morning, where the dew still clings to the part of the lawn not yet touched by late-rising sun. It’s impossible to pick raspberries without eating some, and they are always bountiful in flavor and soft on the tongue. It’s also impossible to pick them properly without getting your arms scratched up and berry-stains on the knees of your jeans… with sad berry corspes caught in your toes. But that’s another story. Once I’d worked my way down the line of raspberries and back, I’d usually have more than enough for a batch of jam. The amount I’d pick in a morning costs about $20 here, probably because raspberries are hard to pick and transport.

I’d bring them inside, and we’d rinse them. Then we’d start to squish them with the back of forks in glass pie plates. This is a tricky manuever, since the goal of a raspberry is to turn you red with a permanent stain. But unlike strawberries, it’s highly satisfying to squash raspberries with a fork. They go splat very easily.

4 cups crushed raspberries
7 cups sugar
1 teaspoon margarine (to keep a skin from forming)
1 packet CERTO pectin

The sugar/raspberry combination becomes liquid almost immediately. The margarine floats on the top of the mix for a long time, until the the mixture becomes hot. You have to stir for a long time — always longer than you think. And then things all come together at once. It hits a rolling boil and you dump in the Certo and stir like crazy for 60 seconds. Then you take off the heat. A brief fast moment to skim any skin that did happen and then I would pour into the jar (still hot from the dishwasher) with a big ladle, and then transfer the funnel to the next jar. Mom would wipe the jar lid with a hot dishcloth (attempting not to burn herself), and then pull a jar lid from the boiling water with two forks (attempting not to burn herself), put the lid on the jar and screw it tight with the threaded lid-holders (attempting not to burn herself), and then turn it upside down (attempting not to burn herself).

And then you’re done. You pour any that’s left over into a bowl for dad to have with his toast. You start to clean up from the carnage of fast-moving jam splatters. You sit at the kitchen table talking about something, or maybe getting bread started. And then you hear the first one… ^pop^. Jam makes a distinctive noise when it seals, cooling enough to contract and make the lid convex instead of concave. The pop is the sound of success — of jam that will sit in the cupboard and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Jones camping cookies. I love the sound of jam sealing.

I would really like to make raspberry jam this summer. Raspberries cost more than gold, unfortunately, when purchased commercially. I planted raspberries, but they are still small, weak things — and probably will never thrive before I have to move. I called some u-pick places and there are very few summer raspberries — mostly they have an autumn pick here. But hopefully, come mid July, I will be able to live out this fantasy (with my husband ably standing in the place of my mother in the trying not to get burned department).