* So the new Pope has considerable Chicago ties (including a brother still living there). There have been some wonderful Chicago jokes making the rounds: "DA POPE" is a simple one.
But my favorite, in part because of the reference and in part because it took half a second to get it was:
"The cardinals won't tell you this, but the conclave vote wasn't even close. It was 25 or 6 to 4."
I laughed about that for about five minutes.
(I dunno. I think if he has a sense of humor, Leo XIV would at LEAST be amused by that second one)
* Got all my grades in today. I doubt I'll get anyone challenging or asking for extra points, but if they do - I can't do anything. They earned what they earned. So I'm done until fall.
* Then I came home and cleaned house. It wasn't as bad as it sometimes is, but I still vacuumed all the floors and damp-mopped them, hoping to get rid of the allergens (and also keep the ants down; we've all been battling the tiny black ants here because it's been such a wet spring). Did all the laundry but didn't quite have the energy to change the bedsheets (I can do that tomorrow, they were the last load I did and can sit in the dryer until I need them)
* I also got out the yarn I need to wind off - a couple skeins of dk for a cowl called "Along the Susquehanna" (sort of a "picture knit" in a knit purl pattern, a band of waves, a band representing railroad tracks, a band representing plowed fields, and one of birds in the air), and yarn for a couple pairs of socks. I also want to FINALLY make that "emotional support chicken" plushie both because I want one, and given the added load a colleague will have this fall because of our failed search, I want to make her one (but want to test the pattern out first)
* I do need to mow one last time, that will either be early Monday or Sunday afternoon. I'd LIKE to cut more brush but I need new gloves for that and I don't want to risk cutting myself up too much of getting poison ivy (there is some in the yard) right before I travel.
* But I'm tired, this semester has been A LOT. I finally cleaned up the lab I had been using as a soils lab (the colleague I share it with has a summer research student who will need to use her half of the room) and I will need to set up my soil-invertebrate extraction apparatuses when I return. And I'm done, it looks like, with teaching in other buildings, and in fall will be back in my own building - so no having to truck a distance in the rain, no having to worry about midmorning parking, and no having to make sure I have every last thing I need from my office when I head out to class.
And the goings-on in the world are a lot - now it looks like India and Pakistan are escalating what started out as a skirmish and I know they've always been uneasy neighbors (I suspect British colonialism takes a lot of the blame here for that, with how they partitioned things). But they're both nuclear powers! And as a kid of the 80s.....well, nuclear powers getting into it make me anxious, I know several times since 2022 when Ukraine was invaded I thought "here it goes, Putin pulls out the nukes, and we're done"
I would very much like to live in boring times.
*Tomorrow is graduation. I thought I might see my outgoing chair but it turns out she's gone off to Vegas with her sister (and her adult son is joining them) for a vacation. (She lost her husband something like 15 years ago- heart issue). I know at least one of my colleagues will be there because he mentioned it, so I won't be all alone to represent Biology.
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