* April 28 is the 20th anniversary of my Ph.D. defense. So the Sunday after Easter will mark 20 years of my being a Ph.D. (I count from the day of the successful defense, not the graduation, when the degree was officially conferred, which was in early May)
I will have to do something to mark the day, I think. That was a big thing in my life and is probably the accomplishment I remember most proudly. (Even more than finally getting part of the darn thing published as an article some seven years later)
* Tired today. Still have a lot to do: two papers to read for tomorrow's meeting with the student, sometime work a bit on my research, an exam to write for next week... Yesterday was long but was a pretty good day - took half the ecology class out into the field for herbaceous sampling. It went pretty well; one of the students is a beginning Botany major and was really interested in some of my tricks for plant identification. (I guess some people....don't teach those? I was always eager to pass on any way I knew that made identifying plants easier).
I also remembered correctly that that one flowering Asteraceae was ragwort, aka "Stinking Willie."
There was one plant I couldn't remember (I feel like I should and I need to consult my prairie books, but given that this was a disturbed area it could also have been an "escaped" garden flower). Small, pale purple, zygomorphic, with two tiny "nectar horns." Kind of like Lobelia siphilicata but not exactly.
Edited to add: BLUE TOADFLAX. (A Linaria). I had forgotten about that but I hunted around a bit on the Noble Foundation Plant Image Gallery and found it: right shade of purple, the tiny nectar horns, the leaves...yup, that's it.
(And apparently more up-to-date sites have renamed it <A HREF="https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=nuca">Nuttallanthus canadensis
. One site even had it moved to the Plantaginaceae, but that seems weird to me, but I guess the newer DNA analysis weirds a lot of our former classifications.
I really need to take some time later this spring and just go out with my books and re-familiarize myself with plant. And read up, especially if my colleague the botanist retires like he's been threatening to, and Systematic Botany happens to fall in my lap.
* Elders and Board meeting last night. Long, but we did good work - worked on next years' budget, planned to do some repair that needs to be done, arranged to give $300 (in addition to the $200 the CWF is giving) towards the effort to help RSVP buy a decommissioned church to make it into a new, updated senior center. But it was a good meeting, we laughed a lot (in the good way: laughing together over things instead of laughing-at people; and yes, I tend to be very sensitive to that, as someone who was laughed at a lot in the past)
* Today is my long teaching day (2, 75-minute lecture classes and a 2-hour lab) and I also have to do the box office thing for the Children's Play tonight.
I'll be glad when this week (and next week: we do the online interviews of the top candidates so that's three additional hours of my life spoken for) is over. The 18th, Maundy Thursday, will mark the time when I get a bit of respite. (We are having a Maundy Thursday service; it is the return-the-favor - the Presbyterian minister is coming to our church to deliver the message.) I have Good Friday off and I am seriously considering going to Sherman to shop; I haven't been there since late February (not counting a quick stop at Kroger's on the way back from Spring Break). I need to get out, I need to do something different for a change. Maybe a morning of antiquing and a stop at the Kroger's (and I consider some special meal for Easter, either I do lamb loaf again or maybe roast a chicken)
Sunday this week is going to be busy: bell choir is playing, I am an Elder, and I have the added duty of doing the offertory meditation as there's a baptism and the minister asked me to do it to buy him a little extra time to change clothes (heh. I should have told him about the fishing-waders trick...). So I have to find something to read for that.
* the fishing-waders trick: I may have mentioned this before, but almost 40 years ago now, when I was baptized, the minister who did it (a woman, and a tiny woman at that - she was shorter than I was and I was 13) wanted to do the baptism in the middle of the service rather than after the service as previous ministers had done. (I suppose I need to note that in most Disciples of Christ congregations, baptism is usually full immersion in a baptistry). But timing was an issue: it takes a while to get put back together after doing a baptism, even if you wear a swimsuit under the robe, you have to disrobe and re-dress after. So my dad came up with the idea: well, what if we get you a pair of waders? You know, like are used in fly-fishing? She liked that idea. So one Saturday a few weeks before, armed with a tracing of her foot and her shoe size, my dad and I went to the big sporting-goods store in Akron. We wound up having to buy a pair of boys' waders, that's how small Jayne was. But they worked, and I think she used them for a few later baptisms, and when she and her husband (who was also a minister - she married partway during her time at our church) moved on to another congregation, she took them with her. (I suppose she's retired now; she was probably in her late 30s at least at the time I knew her)
* Another Atlas Obscura article: Roman-era coin from reign of Allectus found. This interests me in light of having just recently read "The Silver Branch" - it was about Allectus killing (or having-killed) Carausius and taking over.
It's going to be auctioned, which makes me slightly sad - I'd like to hear of it going in a museum where lots of people could see it, instead of into some collector's collection.
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