Because I'm tired. And I hurt - my shoulder is almost totally better but now my back is griping me. I THINK it's a combo platter of standing for too long in dress shoes on our tile-over-concrete floors, and doing a more rigorous workout than I had been doing. In a few minutes I'm going to take a warm shower and see if that helps, and if it does, I'll heat up one of my several buckwheat bags* when I get into bed
(*These things are a GENIUS invention. Like a hot water bottle but without worries about it leaking. I have used them so many times for so many things - bursitis, pulled muscles, cramps, headaches, chills, just-generally-feeling-bad-and-sad)
At least my shoulder is better so it means I don't have frozen shoulder or a shoulder separation or that I broke it in that fall back in 2013 and should have got it set....
***
I think we're all kind of upset and freaked out about the whole burglar thing. Faculty meeting today was a little tenser than it normally is, and some of us said things maybe we shouldn't have (and I include myself in the we).
My colleague who lost the most stuff (important documents and a bunch of money) said he's still "processing" it. The biggest thing is that it was someone who had worked with us in the past, that we trusted, but who proved himself untrustworthy. And I think that's the most upsetting part.
(On the good end: the campus police officer thinks there's still an outside chance they may turn up some of my colleague's missing stuff. I hope so. He doesn't care about the money at this point but there were other things important to him)
***
I got out my fake Leatherman tool (it was a freebee from a publisher) and used it to screw the panel in the bottom of my office door back in place. I also taped the upper edge down with something like duct tape; it's on the inside of the door so it will serve as an indicator just IF someone else is getting into these rooms, it will show it. I don't expect anything but maybe it's nice to have a little indicator just in case anything else goes missing.
People told me I could ask the custodian to do it for me, but really, it's not part of his job and I had the tool handy, so I figured why not do it?
***
I've not done much knitting lately because of my sore shoulder and also I am trying to complete the chapter reviews for a textbook publisher - I reviewed the table of contents back in June, never got my little check, and when all this stuff blew up with missing items I decided to e-mail the publisher, just to be sure it didn't come while I was out of town and get stolen. Turns out they had not cut the check yet because I hadn't sent them a W-9.....and the guy in charge of this project then asked me if I wanted to review chapters for him. The payment for the chapters is a lot nicer than that for the TOC, but it is more reading and more work.
I'm thinking when I get this check it will be converted into some kind of nice yarn for a sweater. There are some pretty ones in the new fall Interweave, lots of cabled ones....
***
I do think I need a little treat tomorrow afternoon or evening. I'm torn between getting carryout from the good Italian place for dinner (that would also simplify the "what do I want to eat" issue, which sometimes actually boils down to "What do I feel like fixing?") or maybe running to the local kitchen shop and finally replacing my big 4-quart Dutch Oven that I burned rice in the bottom of and have never been able to get clean. (There's also a restaurant-supply house in Sherman, and I want to go some time, but meh, it's a pain driving to Sherman on a Friday afternoon). Or something.
I think I need to stick at home on Saturday; we are having a lunch at church on Sunday and I need to fix something. I'm probably going to do a cake - I have a few good from-scratch recipes. I might do the good old Hot Milk Sponge and make a good chocolate frosting ("Chocolate Satin Frosting") I have a recipe for.
Or I might do cupcakes; that means no one has to worry about cutting and dishing up the cake and kids always like cupcakes. I probably have a recipe that would work well.
***
I mentioned "stickermarking" some of my textbooks (like the digital watermarks some online artists use to make it less likely someone will appropriate their work unattributed). Thinking about it - maybe I don't JUST put them on the cover, those can be peeled off, but maybe I have specific pages I put a little pony on, just as a marker - Twilight Sparkle on page 42, of course, and Rainbow Dash on page 20 (percent cooler). I don't know of any other numbers I could associate with ponies, other than maybe four for Applejack (as in, "One, Two, Three, Four, raise this barn....")
(I think a reason I love the Ponies so much is that I can see how I have a few characteristics of each one - I can be very stubborn and "I'll do it MYSELF" and Applejack does that sometimes. And I'm super self-critical and rule-following like Twilight. And I can be a fussbudget like Rarity, and I admit I secretly wish I could give in to Drama Queening when it all goes to heck. And of course, Fluttershy - I try to be kind but also I find people often talk over me. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, maybe less so, but I wish I had Pinkie's metabolism and level of sugar tolerance. And her cheerfulness and the fact that she never met a pony she didn't like. And I guess really, I am sort of competitive and "hate to lose" like Rainbow Dash.
Of course, I also love that each one fundamentally represents a virtue - sometimes I feel like virtues get short shrift in our culture: Applejack is honest and hardworking, Fluttershy is kind and gentle, Twilight is both smart and self-controlled, Pinkie is joyful and friendly, Rainbow Dash is loyal and a good encourager, and Rarity is generous and creative.
And yes, I will confess to trying to map The Fruits of the Spirit onto those Ponies plus a few others. One example I get is:
Love: Princess Cadence
Joy: Pinkie
Peace: Luna (princess of the night, and of sleep, and also protects ponies from bad dreams)
Patience: Applejack
Kindness: Rarity, because it is like generosity
Goodness: Celestia, because she is a generally benificent ruler
Faithfulness: Rainbow Dash, because it is like loyalty
Gentleness: Fluttershy
Self-control: Twilight
I dunno. It doesn't map perfectly and of course some would say I was wrong to take something not explicitly Christian and map it onto Christian themes, but then again CS Lewis talked about how a lot of things in our world pointed in a Certain Direction, even if they weren't explicitly about the Direction in which they pointed, so.)
Eventually, when I get one or two of my ongoing projects finished, I need to start Treehugger.
I got another little Apple Family member - a greenish pony with a bonnet named "Apple Munchies," which makes me laugh and also wonder if she's a friend of Treehugger's.....(because "munchies," heh)
(EDITED TO ADD: The *pony* is named "Apple Munchies." I don't know if her bonnet has a name.... :)
["I met a man with a wooden leg named Smith." "Oh, what was his other leg named?"])
If they come out with a Fluttershy's cottage playset I am totally buying it. I have managed to resist the Apple Family barn but I think Fluttershy's Cottage I could not. (They won't do a Golden Oak Library, because it got destroyed at the end of Season Four, but if they did, I'd want it too)
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