Tuesday evening things

 * Having to put "The Poison Squad" aside for a while; it's too distressing to read while real-world food-safety regulations are being repealed. 

I hope we don't get milk with formaldehyde in it again like in the 1890s.

* Managed to finally get some research reading done. It's hard to fit it in, there are  millions of pecked-to-death-by-ducks things when you teach. Like, I had to do (re-do, in fact: we have to do it every semester and have had to for at least 10 years) training on avoiding needlesticks, and SDS sheets, and the hazmat safety plan. And all of those together took about an hour to do. 

* I *think* I am going to try to find someone who has land with red cedar on it and try to do some comparisons of invertebrates under that with under broadleaved trees. Or maybe go back and try to revive the "different sites out at the field area" sampling, but this time do some soil analysis too. But first I have to get my light stands and lamps out of storage, and set them back up in the room where I HAD been teaching soil lab. 

Of course, I'll have to move THAT stuff somewhere; they're not done with the renovations yet, so I'll have to move it "back" twice - first to a room to store it in, and second, back to the lab where it normally stays. But I can't go the entire summer without at least trying to do some research. 

* Thanks to a friend on Bluesky, I tracked down a minimally-affordable copy of Dan Dindal's "Soil Biology Guide" (out of print, but very useful, and I could never get a copy to keep). So hopefully that will be here soon. 

Yes, I know: I'm perhaps within a decade of retirement so I don't know how useful an investment it is, but it's kind of been a "grail" publication for a number of years. And who knows? I might get a few more good projects done, or I might even be able to request office and lab space in retirement and continue the research. 

* But other than that, a challenging day. I mowed the lawn yesterday evening so I hurt a bit from that, and my allergies were bad.. And there were challenging things. The equipment for the lab I was supposed to teach was slightly wrong, and things didn't work out (this is a gen ed class, I don't design the labs). And then a somewhat contentious meeting about "what do we do about the failed search." We may have a solution but.....it means more work and I'm honestly worked-out about things that are extra over and above my teaching and research. 

* And just sad at the world, more news of tariffs, and speculation that there will be massive supply chain disruptions which may make even simple things harder to find (as well as more expensive) and it kind of undoes me, all the uncertainty: maybe it'll be nothing and if you buy ten toothbrushes ahead you won't need to have done that* or maybe it'll be TERRIBLE and it'll be years before being able to get things is normal again, or maybe food will get hard to find like it was during COVID where being able to actually GET milk was a big victory and you had to spend more time and energy getting things

(*though in that case I could always donate them to....well, I'd say a homeless shelter, but it seems my state's governor has largely banned those from being built in the smaller cities, and we don't have one...)

And it all worked up into a ball of suck, and I was sad and anxious for much of the afternoon. I did buckle down from about 3:30 to 5 pm and get some reading done, but....there are a lot of days now where just snowballs and makes me unhappy. 

* At least I'm done with labs now. Monday was the make-up for a couple students who missed one of the soils exercises due to illness (and I emphasized today that if anyone was still missing one, it was too late, they had their chance). Today was the last intro lab, and I'm already done with ecology (tomorrow is extra office hours for people to consult about the write up of their final project. Several people already gave me "finished drafts" for me to look over, I like to do this even though it takes time, it means the final papers are better). So maybe tomorrow I get more research reading done, and maybe I can get home at an earlier hour to relax. (I do have two exams to write for next week some time, and then the finals to brush up.)

*  The other day I was listening to something on Sirius XM (I think it was the Spa channel, and yeah, yeah, I know, but sometimes you need that kind of calm trancy stuff when you're driving) and they advertised a new channel called Mom Jeans (they featured an Enya song) and I thought "It's 'Yacht Rock for Her' " and kind of laughed to myself.