Wednesday is done

AKA my longest day of teaching. (I am in class for five hours. Three of those are back-to-back lectures, which gets really taxing on the brain and vocal cords - it is three different classes, not three sections of one class).

So, here's some random:

* I think I'm gonna make pizza for dinner tonight. I have a crust mix, I have a can of good ol' Chef Boyardee sauce (which is what my mom used when my brother and I were kids, so it will be nostalgic even if I ultimately decide it's not that good - I had given it up as "too much sodium" but reading the label of a can in the store again, I decided maybe not). I have plain cheese (well, not so plain, Sargento's "Italian six cheese blend") to go on it.

* I still have leftover picadillo but meh, it will keep another day or two, I just want something different.

* Classes went reasonably well today. I confess I don't always remember too much of what I covered in the three-hour marathon, but given that I can kind of teach on autopilot at this point....I think I'm doing okay. Lab went well, no one made the horrific procedural screw-ups that are possible in this lab (not dangerous, just annoying, because then that group has to re-start the lab) so either I explained it better than normally or people paid better attention than normally.

* I have a tiny patch of poison ivy on my right hand and at first I was deeply confused because it doesn't develop any more slowly in me than about 3-5 days, and I've barely been outside in that time frame. But then I remembered I was moving some of the field equipment around and that probably the oil could have been on one of the measuring tapes or something. I'd complain about "who took stuff out where there was poison ivy and didn't wipe it down when they came back" but that person was probably me anyway.

* I need to get back to more knitting. I read the first chapter (of three I need to) on the book I'm evaluating for Cambridge (they are paying me in books but it's cool, there's one on soil fauna I really want and that can be one of my free books). I can't crochet while I read (too much looking at what I am doing with my hands). I don't have any plain stockinette knitting so I've decided I'll just READ read the next two chapters (the project is due on the 9th, so I have a few days yet). I might be able to do one Friday afternoon and the last one Monday (we don't have class that day).

(I don't like to work in the evening after my hardest teaching day, and I've decided this is one small grace I will extend to myself in this time: not pushing myself so very hard)

* I've been doing "thoughts of the day" on my signboard except I didn't have time to put the one up today (it was "off" day for exercising and I slept later than I anticipated). But I did say on Twitter maybe the thought for the day is "Let it be"

(Previous thoughts: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" "I need a hug" and "the only way out is through")

I'll probably figure out more over time and I ordered more letters (from JoAnn's, so I am hoping the fonts do match). Two sets in white so I will have plenty of each letter and one set in gold for fancy or for when I put up messages at Christmas and Easter.

* Still having random thoughts and memories of my dad bubbling up from time to time. One thing I remember now that my mom told me I should take after Thanksgiving is one of his rock hammers (he had five). I may never use it for its original purpose but having it around will be good. And my brother can have one; he actually does sometimes take my niece out rockhounding so they can use it...And there's a big coffee mug with a photograph from Bryce Canyon on it I gave him a few years ago for Christmas that she wanted me to take back and which I simply forgot....I can wrap it up carefully and bring it back at Thanksgiving.

I'm also already thinking about the memorial service and I confess I'm hoping I'm JUST asked to read a Scripture passage or something; having to write out a set of stories and read them would be hard.

also, my favorite dad-story? Contains a word I don't think I can say in a church full of a diversity of people, and euphemising it down takes away what was, for me, the humor and the impact:

In short: one summer I was taking some of my "cognate" classes at Akron. (I didn't attend Akron as a regular student because the field I was interested in....well, the department in it there wasn't all that highly-thought-of back then). But I did my distribution-sciences, the stuff everybody had to have and that could transfer there.

And one summer, I got a terrible prof for one of the classes. It was someone known to my dad: they had tangled more than once when they were on committees together. The prof was rude to us; fundamentally, the first day he walked in and said "I know why you are here; you cannot pass this class during the regular semester and so you are thinking it will be easier in the summer."

I was *immediately* on the defensive because I was taking the class in order to graduate early! I was doing extra work, I wasn't a slacker! But of course I couldn't tell the guy that. (Nothing makes me angrier faster than someone assuming I'm lazy or incompetent when it is a situation where I know I am not).

He was also just generally a jerk to us. I won't go into details but something he did wound up with the Dean calling him on the carpet over a conflict-of-interest thing, and he took it out on US.

And I was afraid I was going to fail the class, because he was in some ways unfair and it seemed he was making things extra hard on us....some of the exam questions WERE pretty unfair, and a neutral third party looked at the exam and agreed that they were (the person I ultimately hired to tutor me)

Anyway, one day it was particularly bad, him berating us over something, and when I got out of class I had to go over to my dad's office because I was doing some work for him after lunch and anyway I didn't have a car on campus, I was dependent on him as my ride. And I was crying by the time I got into the office, and he asked me what was wrong, and I kind of squeaked out that my professor was unfair and I was going to fail the class and I didn't know what to do and kind of flailed my hands. And my dad grabbed me and hugged me - he was 6" taller than I am, and he outweighed me by at least 100 pounds at that point - in his prime, he was a big man - and while he was hugging me, he leaned down and VERY quietly (so none of the grad students or the secretaries who were in the office would hear)

"I'm sorry you got the asshole professor."

(pardon the language but there is NO way I can euphemize that and have it work)

It was a word he ALMOST NEVER used in front of me, so there was the little shock of it,. but also, in that moment I felt really "heard" because he was fundamentally saying "I know this is unfair, and no, it's not your imagination or you being oversensitive" and also yeah, it made me laugh a little and remember it.

And secretly? One of my mottoes my whole career has been "Don't be the asshole professor" because I remember how isolating and awful it felt when that guy assumed we were all dumb and lazy. Even when some of my students do foolish things or ask aggravating questions, I try to take a deep breath and be kind and civil, because many of our students DON'T have an understanding dad to hug them and tell them that it's not their fault their professor sucks - and so, they might be more likely to give up and drop out. And yeah, maybe that's one of the ways I can continue to honor my father's memory, by striving to be kind even as I have high expectations of people.

But anyway. That's one of my favorite stories - maybe my *personal* favorite story, in the sense that he and I were the only ones involved, but because of that a-word, I don't think I can say it in church. (Not even in a Disciples church). And it might scandalize my mom a little even if I'd tell her the story in private and she'd laugh.

*  And yeah. When the memorial gets closer, I'm gonna request that all of y'all who pray (it matters not what form that prayer takes) or does good thoughts, mojo, light, whatever - I'm gonna ask you to pray that the good Lord give me as much strength and fortitude and grace as I can *possibly* carry into that whole Thanksgiving week. Not just because the memorial service will probably be really hard, but also because there will be a houseful of people - extended family, people who knew him and worked with him, and, I will openly confess a few of those people are people who really rub me the wrong way. I try to get along with everyone but there are one or two folks on my outermost circle who either like to question every choice I have made in my life, or who think because I'm an unmarried and childless woman, I am no more than a child myself, and so they have the right to dictate to me what they think I should be doing in the future or what I did wrong in the past....and it really is going to take a tremendous amount of grace on  my part, given how emotional I will be to begin with, to not just haul off and tell them what I think of their advice.

Because again, while maybe it's something they deserve to hear, it would not be the right time to put it forward.

At least I have a smartphone now so maybe I could retreat into Neko Atsume or even Twitter (even if I have to use all my data and then some) for a few minutes - just say "I have to take this" and step out of the room....

(And I know my mother will be suffering too; one or two of those people are people she similarly finds difficult. And my mother is even more easy going than I am)