Random for Thursday.

* Had a student ask me if my 8-9 office hours were 8-9 PM. My response was actually kind of like Regular Time's Benson's: "ha ha ha. No."

I was a little nicer than that but seriously? When I'm teaching an 8 am class two days a week, someone thinks I would hold 8 pm office hours? (I think the building is even locked up for the night by then).

* I managed to cut down the Cream of Tomato Soup recipe from Lost Recipes to use an 8-ounce can of sauce and make just enough for two servings. Granted, the sauce is probably less strongly flavored than canned tomatoes would be (the only canned tomatoes I had were big, 28-ounce cans of the Cento brand I buy, and I didn't feel like making 7 cups of soup. And I looked at the Green Spray but they had NO!!! cans of tomatoes that were low-sodium at all. So I just used the "no salt added" sauce I keep on hand)

How you do it:

Melt about a tablespoon of butter. Saute a little bit of onion in it (I used freeze-dried shallots, because I didn't feel like cutting into an onion just to use 1/4 or less of it).

Then add about a tablespoon of flour (this is for thickening). Cook for about a minute, then add a cup of milk (I used a small can of evaporated milk topped up with regular milk). Stir to mix, and add your seasonings now (I added a TINY bit of salt - the tomatoes are unsalted - and basil, you could add whatever you want). The recipe I had called for a little honey, I added about a teaspoon of golden syrup but I might leave it out next time, it made things a little sweet.

Then add the tomatoes. I used an 8-ounce can of sauce but I suspect a blended-up small can of whole tomatoes would be even better. I added a little tomato paste (I get the tubes of Cento, which are very handy to have) to make it more tomatoey.

Another thing I didn't do: the recipe, like many of these, called for adding a little baking soda to the tomatoes. This mellows the acid a little but it also adds more sodium and I've never found canned tomatoes to be too "bitey," so I left it out.

It made enough for a serving plus some to put away for another meal.

* One of the things I like about Folio Society is that they have a blog. (It's open to everyone, not just members, to read). Periodically they do features on someone-or-other's home library. These tend to be Very British, and I mean that in a good way.

This month's is James Howland Beers.

It's a lovely library, one of his interests is the Napoleonic wars, and he also has his small childhood collection of Britains toy soldiers on display. And he bemoaned poorly-made bookcases: "a lot of bookcases on the market are not actually structurally meant to handle books." Elsewhere there's a description of bookcases (maybe not his, I don't remember) collapsing in the middle of the night and spilling their contents. (My "main" bookcases are some I saved my money up for and had custom made, of oak, by people who knew how much books weighed and made them sturdy enough, But I have had cheap bookcases with shelves that got swaybacked after a few years)


He also notes 'I have driven the occasional wife quite crazy.*' Heh. I look at that and almost think "Challenge accepted." (I have a LOT of books. Of course, Mr. Beers is probably currently married and also well out of my age bracket (he refers to having seen the current Queen's coronation, and it's implied he was older than a child during that time)

But yeah. I have a LOT of books. And my books are important to me. And I openly admit it would be a dealbreaker if I started dating a guy, he saw my collection of books and either made fun of me for having so many or started pressuring me to get rid of them.

(*However, he notes that one specifically in the context of "we moved, and I wanted to set up the bookcases before we put together anything resembling a functional kitchen." Mmmmn, I'm not so sure I'd have a lot of trouble with that. Yes, if the bed weren't properly set up. (When you move, the FIRST thing you do is set up and make the bed, the second thing you do is get out the towels and some soap, so that when you're just beat and ready to quit for the night you can shower and go straight to bed)


I always enjoy seeing other people's libraries. His looks particularly comfortable to me.


******

Well, this has been one of those "14 years and 4 months and I can retire with a full pension" days. Gigglers giggling in my class, people talking I had to stop and glare at.

Faculty meeting full of dire news:
 - there's probably required faculty training coming on "dealing with an active shooter situation" though it sounds like the training basically tells you you're probably gonna die

- some weird bad stuff from the financial officer that suggests I may be in violation of some bookstore statute by having my labs copied and distributing them for free rather than having them bound and sold through the bookstore. The problem with this (other than that others profit from my work) is that I have a few labs that are essentially "creative commons" - their writers gave me permission to use them PROVIDED they are not sold in any way. Which would mean I'd have to come up with new labs.

- Also that maybe we're wrong for having potlucks that aren't catered by the campus cafeteria. I'm sorry, no. Just, no. That's not gonna happen, not in this department. (And I think the cafeteria food has too much salt for me. And besides, it's institutional food, which is almost never very good.)

I have my late-afternoon class followed by AAUW. I've had a headache most of the day and I'm really ticked off at those giggly students still. Giggling is okay when something is actually FUNNY in class, it's not okay when your professor says "basic" to mean "simple" or "fundamental" and you take it in the Urban Dictionary meaning like "basic b*tch" (I think that's what they're laughing at, every time I use the word they giggle. It's freaking annoying. It's like being in Pee-Wee's Playhouse but not being clued into the concept of there being a Secret Word. I admit today I did my best to say "fundamental" instead and it ANNOYS me that they are "training" me to change my behavior.)

Anyway, I just hate the whole concept of "basic b*tch," it feels misogynist and sort of classist to me. And very, very judgey. And when people are judgey it makes me angry.


Sigh. On good days I enjoy what I do. And I even say, on the really good days, "Maybe I'll keep teaching until 70 like my parents did, or even until 75 if my health holds up" (Because I know I get bored and twitchy without something meaningful to do). I COULD retire at 60 (or just a couple months past it; we're on "rule of 90" which means that your age + years of service has to add to 90 for a full pension, and at 60 (or rather, 60 1/2), I will have put in 30 years.