A happier note

Here's the birthday loot, including SURPRISE EXTRA GIFT that came this afternoon (the sock yarn book, and thank you to the person who sent that to me!)



Oh, so many cards! I have never received so many cards in my life and that was especially fantastic, getting a card or two almost every day for nearly the entire month. (And My Little Pony cards are a "thing" now, apparently - I received two in addition to the hand-drawn chibi-Fluttershy card)

The cast iron enameled pot was from my parents. I've washed it to make it ready but haven't used it yet. (Not shown are the "treats" my mom sent, because I didn't feel like dragging them out of the box and lining them up.)

***

Also, after talking with my dad about the "idea" that a certain administrator had - the source of my HOW ABOUT NO below - I can feel more secure in my sense that it's a really bad idea. (Sometimes in academia, you get a bit of Stockholm syndrome, almost, where someone with power proposes what seems like a really bad idea, and your first thought is "No, that's really an awful idea" but then as you "hear them out" you begin to wonder if you're the crazy one. No, not in this case, not any more - my dad was for a time a low-level administrator and he was aghast at the idea. Also, he was in his early professorial days when the "IETV is the next wave" era and saw that not work out so well....)

I get so tired of people saying that the "virtual" world will replace the real world; that it's okay to throw out your books because e-texts are the future. Or that brick and mortar is dead as the dinosaurs and everyone buys everything online*, or that online education is a perfect replacement for the classroom.

(Online education works fine for some things. It works terribly for lab-based or field-based science.)

(*I also had a worrisome call from one of the Visa cards I hold - they wanted to "verify" a charge that had been placed. I gasped, and thought of the KnitPicks security breach of last year and wondered if I had used that card with them....but no, it turned out the order from Folio Society I made a couple days ago triggered an alert, because it was from the UK. So I was able to laugh and reassure the woman (who sounded like she was from Minnesota, and in fact, this was my Target Visa) that it was okay and I did in fact make that charge. So sometimes online shopping has its dangers.)