week's almost over

 It was a long one.

* Yesterday afternoon, I realized there was no way we'd be able to do the "walk around campus and find what plants have emerged, and look at the newly unfolding leaves on the trees we've already covered" lab I wanted to do (see next point) so I had to scramble and get the Caryophyllidae stuff together (Caryophyllaceae, Phytolaccaceae, Cactaceae, Polygonaceae, and Amaranthaceae/Chenopodiaceae). Of those, the only one I have growing ordinarily is pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) but it's not up yet. So then I had no live material, just herbarium sheets. If I had had all the time in the world, I could have run out to one of my field sites and pulled up a prickly-pear cactus, and maybe found some curly dock, but I had very LITTLE time (the monthly board meeting at church was in the evening), so I decided to get some carnations (which are Caryophyllaceae)

At least they show the fused calyx and the swollen nodes typical of the family. It took some doing to get them - the first florist's I tried was closed (despite it not being their closing time yet) and running out to the second one, someone pulled of a side street (I had the right of way, they did not - they had a stop sign) and almost hit me. This is the second time this sort of thing has happened in a couple weeks; I laid on the horn and slammed hard on the brakes and evaded an accident but I was NOT happy.

I was grateful though that Roby's still had a few carnations. I don't know if it helped the lab but it made me feel better about it, so I guess it was worth it.

* And yeah. We had an enormous amount of rain over the past few days and it led to puddles in low spots, and saturated soil, and this:

That's the back parking lot, the lot the students use. The water's about 4" deep at the deepest point, and this is not good because this is where the spots that are accessible (no stairs to get into the building) so the handicapped parking is here. I can't imagine trying to navigate it on crutches let alone in a wheelchair. And yes, I sent the photo to physical plant though I'm not sure what they can do unless they have a pump and a long hose. There's a storm sewer but just one grate, and I assume it's clogged. 

* This evening I knit a bit, finished the heel flap on the ombre-patterned socks:

This will be one of the projects I take with me on the trip. Not sure what else yet, probably the mitts that I have almost done, maybe the sweater I need to put the bands on....