I can't believe it. I nearly have the prairie proposal licked into shape to the point where I can pass it to other people to look at it. A few more tweaks of descriptions of Oklahoma prairie, a hunting expedition through the supply and equipment catalogs to put together my equipment page, and it's good to go.

This definitely calls for a day of retail therapy tomorrow, especially since I am getting $75 of gas money returned to me from a grant.

Last night, I pulled out the long-stalled Beaded Rib Socks. I decided that as I had been working on them since my spring break (March), it was time to finish them.

I finished the heel flap of the second sock. I'm bound and determined to get these done before I leave for my summer break.

And, it's time for The Friday Five:

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?

Teaching, research, writing, taking two weeks out to visit family and relax, more research, prepare my tenure packet.

2. What was your first summer job?

Aside from "extra" chores that made me money (mowing lawns, painting), my first "real" job (in that I wasn't paid directly by my parents) was helping my dad teach a summer enrichment course for high-school students in geohydrology. It was fun at times (like the first year I taught it), but at other times it was exasperating (like the year they couldn't get enough students and so recruited several of my brother's goofy friends, who weren't really G&T students but were warm bodies, and then had to put up with them teasing the other students and harrassing me all summer).

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?

I'd like to go to the Grand Canyon again, but only if it weren't so crowded as last time. Or Hawaii. It would be fun to go to Hawaii again.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?

Hmmm....most of my "vacations" in recent years have been trips to scientific meetings. I guess the worst one was the trip to Knoxville...it was just hot, there was nothing to do outside of the meetings, we were off in the old abandoned former World's Fair site (the one that was in one of the older episodes of The Simpsons - where Bart and his friends run away to Knoxville). I also had a waiter flirting with me but I was in such a bad mood that day I wound up insulting him, and I still feel bad about that (and he was cute, and he had the sweetest drawl...). Oh, and the plane I had to fly there on was a freaking crackerbox that I expected to fall apart in midair.

All the other ESA meetings I've been to have either been close enough to interesting natural areas or at least had decent museums or shopping near them. You really need to be able to get out and sightsee for at least a day at meetings, because you reach the fatigue point at about Day 2.5 and you can't hear another talk.

5. What was your best vacation ever?

Either the time my family and I went to Montreal when I was in high school, or my 1995 trip to the ESA meetings in Snowbird where I got to go around to a lot of the Utah-New Mexico-Colorado area National Parks. And then there was also the trip to Williamsburg coupled with a trip to Harper's Ferry and a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, also while I was in high school.