Another long day....

 As I posted on Twitter early this morning, upon seeing the image here somewhere else: 

"This is what I tell myself every morning when I get out of bed"

(Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon: "Don't worry, she'll hold together....you hear me, baby? Hold together")

Coupla things happened today, ranging from annoying to unfortunate-if-not-drectly-affecting me. (From last to first):

- I had to clean the contacts for the batteries on the time/distance meter on my cross country ski simulator like it was freaking 1982 - the batteries, when they ran out (obviously between yesterday morning and today) corroded a bit. I remembered the old trick of a bit of vinegar on a cotton swab, and that actually fixed it. (I wonder how many of "today's kids" know that trick. Batteries used to be far worse about corroding though in our humid climate they seem to do it more than in drier ones)

- At lunch, I heard a loud bang. Thought nothing of it ("maybe it's a car door") and when I went out to check the mail, I looked at the roof to see if the pecan might have dropped a branch - but no. it hadn't. But when I got home and went out back to gather the soil for lab tomorrow - well, the elm tree had another split and there's a BIG chunk down. Luckily it did not come down ON anything but....I may have to just get that tree removed, as it's dropped more branches lately, and I know that's incredibly expensive to do. (And the logistic hassle, though at least once I get the right guy, he can work even when I'm not home). 

- And finally? A colleague lost their mom today. She had been ill (COVID, and there's a long story there I won't go into) and they have now had to drive back to where she lived to arrange a funeral with the other siblings, and to clear out her house and put it up for sale. They assume they'll be gone a week, which seems awfully short, but maybe the other sibs can carry some of it. They were asking people to cover classes but none of the times lined up with times I was NOT in class - but other people could do it. 

It's just sad and unfortunate and was probably avoidable, but....

In a sad and weird way, it makes me grateful I lost my dad when I did - first of all, because he had had to have LOTS of home-health people coming in, and in the year or so before vaccines, there's a chance he could have contracted it from one of them, and with congestive heart failure he'd have gone down fast, and maybe infected my mom, and taken her with him. But also - it happened in the summer, when I was not teaching, and so it was easy enough for me to get up there to help my mom and also have a tiny bit* of recovery time before I had to start teaching

(*Not enough, but still. And if my colleague comes to me for advice or consolation I'll do what I can. I know everyone is different and they seem not to have been as close to their mother as I was to my father, but I know it will still be very hard.)

 

Anyway. I give an exam tomorrow so that's ONE class sorted, and in another one I know already what I'm covering (prepped it heavily over the weekend, so....I've got that. And I got the exam for NEXT week written already (With four different classes, you are pretty much WRITING an exam every week and GRADING one every week - I like to give four exams in most classes, in the intro class there are FIVE).