Monday morning things

 * Dental check up today, which I never enjoy, and this time I'm less enthused than usual - the double pronged "this is literally the only place other than the grocery store and my office that I am going between now and March" and that feels really unfair, and also slight concern because caseload here is higher than when I went in in June...they had good precautions then but still.

Also my hip bursitis decided to flare up again (big change in weather coupled with me trying to increase the amount of exercise time). I took a dose of Tylenol and maybe that will help with the sore mouth as well?

I don't remember if you put heat or cold on bursitis or I might consider a hot pad on the area (Or, I suppose, an ice pack, but that's not very appealing given how cold it is here).

* A lot of talk on Twitter about Some Dude (it is always Some Dude) who snarked about Jill Biden's Ed.D. and in general "you shouldn't call yourself Dr. unless you're an MD" and....whatever.

I don't insist on Dr. in my day to day life, but I get mad when Some Dude tries to downplay literally the one big thing I did in my life like that. 

Also, a bad memory that came up: someone (not an academic, someone at an NGO) commented on my Master's Thesis work (which my mother, after reading it, said "this was more work than my Ph.D. was!" but of course she did hers in the 1960s when less data analysis was possible) and said it was a "nice little project" which I felt oogy about at the time but now thinking back on it I'm kind of mad about it.

The irony? The paper that developed from that thesis (which can be found here but is apparently paywalled now) is the MOST CITED article I've written, and in fact, I saw a paper just last year that cited it. 

But of course we also found out that that particular Some Dude has apparently been a problem person from way back, yelling at students, that sort of thing. (I had Some Dudes like that when I was a student. You just learned not to go to the office hours of the yellers but find the more sympathetic faculty and ask THEM the questions. Which I'm sure wasn't great for them, having to take time to help a student who wasn't theirs, but... I've done similar for students myself)

* Though I might make a quick run to Lowe's today (so I guess I am not LITERALLY only going to the office and the grocery) because I need some soil and a pot - my old Christmas cactus died (I think I overwatered it during lockdown) and I felt sad about that because it was a cutting off one that had belonged to my great-grandmother (which my mom had inherited). So my mom took some slips off one of hers (she has three from Great-Grandma) and mailed them to me in damp paper towels and they are starting to root and I need to plant them. So hopefully I will eventually have a Christmas cactus again. 

* She sent me a bunch of things - several small wrapped presents (now under the tree:)

(though mostly you see the big mailing boxes, some of which I am not sure yet who they are from; a number of people have my Amazon wishlist so I never know, and one is the Jolabokaflod book - I participated in the CPAAG one this year since I'm stuck here and sending and receiving was easy)

Also my Christmas Doki Doki crate FINALLY came - early this morning, in fact, as a separate mail delivery. I had been watching this for almost a month and a couple points it seems to have got stuck somewhere and I worried that it was either lost or had got damaged.

It had not

I am saving it for Christmas though.

* She also included this, found in a box of things from the basement she was going through (she is using lockdown to sort and clean in ways she could not when my dad needed her so much). I barely remember it; I think she did most of the sewing (and embroidered the chain-stitch tail - not shown - on the back; I could never master chain stitch) and I did the face. 

I wound up putting him on the tree, not sure if I will keep him out on a shelf or with the ornaments after the season is over

* I started a new pair of socks; these are just simple socks. I worked on them during the Zoom knitting time this weekend and also while I watched a couple movies (most of It's a Wonderful Life and also Between Two Worlds which was on TCM this weekend). It's a West Yorkshire Spinners yarn, which at least for now (no idea at all what will happen after Brexit) an affordable yarn here, and it's quite a nice yarn - similar in quality to Opal or Regia, but it is a few dollars cheaper (like I said, that might change? I don't know. I am hoping we can even still GET British products in the future)

It's called Fairy Lights - apparently a reprinting of a colorway from last year, but this time with the addition of stellina, which gives it sparkle, though you can't really see that in the photo