Friday morning random

Last night was the AAUW dinner (which means last meeting for the summer, which means I'm free of one obligation for a while). It was good but uncontrolled meals out make me twitch now. It was food served by the hospital cafeteria....but I've also read how hospitals aren't always as careful about the sodium as they might be.

I will say the single thing that tasted the saltiest to me was the (commercially produced) dinner roll. (But I still ate all of it: I get starved for bread because most commercial bread is too high in sodium for me to buy, and I rarely have time to bake these days.)

The meal was roast beef, and they had horseradish sauce with it. And green beans, which I ate, and a cheesy-bacon potato casserole, which I didn't. (Not that fond of potato casserole, and also, I figured it was one source of salt I could avoid). And salad. And apple dumplings. It was the biggest meal I've eaten in a while.

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I will say one item needed for my bee project is already on its way, and the Whirl-pak bags are on their way to being procured. (Now I have to arrange with Fisher to have them send a W-9, and see if Bigpaintstore will do a w-9 or if I have to rethink and try to buy the paint I need locally. I will say of all the things the Fisher order is the least critical; I could bum some ethanol from the department and replace it when my order comes in.)

I will say this reminds me why I often buy supplies out of my own pocket instead of writing grants - it's a big hassle to arrange for stuff to be bought and a lot of the onus of getting the information necessary is on the PI. (At the really big universities where research is more of a priority, they have "people" to do the legwork that PIs are expected to do here, in terms of arranging for proving tax exempt status and sending w-9 forms and all that. Well, this reminds me: next time, it's probably easier to just spend the money myself. Though that's not playing the "game," and you don't get "credit" for writing grant proposals if you don't write them because your research is cheap enough you can fund it yourself. Yes, some things in academia are a little bit like a Joseph Heller novel.)

What I would like to do this afternoon: take a trip to Sherman, do my grocery shopping and do some other shopping. What I need to do: make the arrangements to try to get stuff ordered (or at least TRY), revise the paper more, make the map (the one thing that is holding me up). And also start identifying and counting soil critters.

I'm not sure which will win. (I give an exam at 8, so the 9-11 office hours stretch is going to be spent trying to get it graded). Maybe I can do an hour or two's worth of samples and still go do some shopping. (Then again: first Friday of the month so the stores will probably be slammed. Argh.)

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At least I will get to knit while invigilating today. Not too much knitting has been going on. Hopefully that will change after exam week, when my daylight hours may be devoted to chasing bees, but in the evenings I will be free.

I did cut a few more blocks on the new quilt but admit I'm getting bored with cutting and want to sew. (But I have to cut all of them and lay it out before I can). I may push this to one side and start a simple wonky-four-patch quilt out of some novelty 10" squares I have.

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I did know that Twilight's butt symbol had 42 points. Also, her "marathon number" for the Running of the Leaves was 42. (I notice things like that. That's the one upside to being mildly compulsive.)  Unfortunately, I don't have any 600-yard or so lots of sockyarn in purple, so I guess the shawl will be pink instead. (I also have a grey-green, for another shawl, and a lovely blue-green blend (and it's a silk blend, even) for the Calico Shawl in the newest Knitscene).