the chicken tail

 I really wanted to be farther on this; I need to have it done by the 28th if I am to get it sent to my niece in time for her birthday. But I made an error on one of the tail halves and had to start over, and had a couple days of feeling meh about it and not wanting to work on it.

At least I got this part done tonight. The tail is a big piece, and it's fiddlier and requires more attention than the other parts. Next step is to pick up stitches (in green; it's one of the stripes) along the long edge, and then with a combination of increases and shortrows you shape the body. 

 the other parts are an "underbelly" and then the wattle and comb. So hopefully I can get a bunch more done tomorrow and Wednesday (thank goodness, no evening meetings this week

 Other than that, it was a challenging day - had to soothe an upset student (exam grade), had to negotiate "how do I protect myself in This Climate and yet also allow folks to record my lectures if they think it helps them" (I fear creative editing, though maybe I don't need to, but I don't want to find out my lectures were posted online; that feels like a violation of my privacy and potentially my intellectual property)

And I got home later than I originally planned; I started moving stuff back to my lab - it's the big soil-analysis lab in ecology this week and there are So. Many. Pieces. Of. Glassware. I need, and it's a good 350 or so steps between my research lab (where it is) and the teaching lab, and so I can't be running that a LOT once the lab is going (I do not have a TA)

Also, they're not done in the building, and the stuff is still occupying my preproom so I can't easily put things away, and that precariously leaning ladder seems like a hazard.

we were all but promised this would be done TODAY. That photo was taken at 4 pm, after the guys had left for the day, so. I'm going to complain if it turns out "yeah this is just where this stuff lives now, deal with it"

It also eats up a LOT of room where I had been storing things. 

There aren't enough labs or preprooms that I could just move. So it's either live with it (hoping it will be done soon) or move to one of the "portable" buildings, which lack climate control, and it's been HOT here again.

It was also loud again this morning and that kind of nerfed my ability to work or concentrate. Loud drilling and using those powered screwdrivers. I am just very tired of everything. 

Another small upset today: I had pre-ordered Kate Atherley's "Math for Knitters," which, yeah, it's partly on me because it comes from CANADA and I should have foreseen this, I guess, but - she currently can't shop here because Canada Post apparently shut down shipping to the US. It "might" restart in October, but then there will probably be more delays because apparently Customs will have to examine every package.

And I know, it's a tiny little thing, and the firstiest of first world problems, but - it's just another reminder of how BROKEN everything is, just like the empty shelves I occasionally run into in the stores here. It's mildly upsetting and given my particular brain-wiring, makes me wonder how much worse the future might be. 

I don't know. If she can't get the book to me before November, maybe I politely request a cancellation of my order? If I'm going to be waiting who-knows-how-long. Because given how the world is know, who even KNOWS if I will be here, like, next year, to use a book. We could all be going together when we go, like Tom Lehrer sang. 

Anyway. there are a lot of things I want (primarily: for the work in my building to be done, the noise to be over, me be able to move all my stuff back to where it belongs) but I'm not going to get ANY of it. And it makes me feel somewhat that I don't matter in all of this; that no one cares about my feelings. I mean, I know they don't and I suppose they shouldn't have to, but it's still an incredibly isolating feeling.