Some random stuff

Sitting in office hours, procrastinating on a little work I could do but don't have to right at the moment.

 *OH, one of the best things ever from when I was in grad school has been memorialized on the internet, on a NOAA webpage, no less. (It's about learning from mistakes). This was the wonderfully hilarious retraction the Vidette (my grad-school's newspaper) printed when it mistakenly referred to Teacher Appreciation Day as T-Shirt Appreciation Day:

“It was incorrectly reported last Friday that today is T-Shirt Appreciation Day. In fact, it is actually Teacher Appreciation Day.” Daily Vidette (Normal, Ill) (04/19-95)

I love that that's out there because down through the years, I've told people of the legendary hilarious retraction from the Vidette, and only about half of them believed me. Now I have a CITATION. 

* Paid my property taxes today. That is one thing that always tells me I am a for-real, for-true grownup: not just that I have to do it, but that I do it early (well before it's due at the end of the month). I take the check down to the courthouse in person, which is maybe overkill, but I figure that's something important enough I don't want to risk it maybe getting lost in the mail.

* We're under a winter storm watch. Boo. And I guess this is another way in which I've become a grown-up: instead of being excited at the possible prospect of snow (as I would have been as a kid), I'm dismayed that I may have to reshuffle things from Friday and try to have the students do them (an exam, and the last few presentations) over finals week. Which is always a difficult solution to implement.

I wish I could still get excited about the prospect of snow. Though I will say, where I live now, snow is much less likely than ice, which is generally pretty awful. Even when I was a kid it was awful. (We had an ice storm in, I think it was, January of 1978 or thereabout? All I remember of it was sleeping in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace (because the furnace wouldn't come on when the electricity was out) and my mom cooking for the neighbors (she had a gas stove with a pilot light that you could light by hand, and their stove was electric).

I did pick up more plain (unscented) votive candles and matches and also batteries for flashlights and radios at the store today, just in case. (I always have a decent supply of "doesn't need cooking or refrigeration" foods - canned fruit, dry fruit, peanut butter, granola, dry cereal....)

*It's really strange having it be near 70 in December. Which it is today. We're going to pay for it Thursday, though, and I'm already prepared in case I get a migraine. (I had one Sunday and didn't realize what it was until it was kind of too late to take the meds. It had been about a year since I had a bad one - supposedly the beta blocker prevents them - so I didn't recognize it as a migraine until I was fixing dinner and realized, "Everything smells way too strong to me." I wound up finishing cooking dinner, putting it away in the fridge, and then going and lying down until the headache went away)

* I'm already thinking about over-break projects. I think I'll take the Hagrid sweater and any unfinished small items, and maybe some toy patterns. There is a small crocheted toy dragon I've been wanting to make (ravelry link for "Fierce Little Dragon"). And I will look around and think if there's anything else. Maybe some of the Mochimochi toys I've bought patterns for over the years....

* I admit it. I will never outgrow stuffed toys. Just today, browsing Amazon, I stuck a Rarity (they have a bigger one now, with hair that's not the "spaghetti hair" some of the toys have -it's actually pretty nice and pretty show-accurate) in my cart. And an Octavia (though she had the "spaghetti hair"). I thought about it. I didn't buy them. I can afford them, it's just, I don't know. (I've looked at the particular Octavia about a dozen times but never buy her. I guess part of me says, "You could make one off that same old pattern you use and she'd "match" better with DJ PON-3")

* No, I don't feel comfortable asking my family for them for Christmas. No one there knows I'm a brony/pegasister/whatever (I don't know that I really qualify as a brony, seeing as I'm not as deep into the fandom as many are). I don't know why I feel so weird about admitting it to them; I suppose part of me is worried they've seen some of the slanted reporting on it some of the news programs have done (where the assumption seems to be that every adult fan of the show has a, shall we say, unhealthy sort of love for the ponies.)

* I do still want to make a Big Mac off of the Mr. Ed pattern. No, not show-accurate in any way but the idea amuses me. I have the yarn, it's just making the time to do it.

* And more pony....I confess, in the season opener (I assume everyone who's going to see it has....) before I realized fully, "Oh, this is the PAST they are showing," when Luna (as Nightmare Moon) zapped Celestia, and she was lying there on the ground, and Twilight started crying, I had two thoughts: (1) "Oh no.....they're not writing her character out that way, could they DO that?" (2) I started tearing up a little. It is a pretty intense scene. (I wonder if this season is going to go back to more of a "magical-girl adventure" thing, rather than slices of life in Ponyville. Whichever way, I'm fine with it - I can enjoy either.)

* I do need to come up with more Christmas gift ideas (small stuff, mostly). My parents have been asking me. I asked for a bunch of books already and a couple of kitchen items and a new knit winter nightgown....maybe I should go and see if there is any yarn I particularly want, or any kits.