Another weekend thing

 Last Saturday, after getting off the Zoom knitting group, I felt kind of restless. So I decided to drive out to a town about 15 minutes east, which has a small antique/gift shop that can be fun to visit. 

I checked their FB page just to ascertain they were open, and saw they were but they were also hosting a flea market. I almost did not go, given that that means crowding and difficulty parking and maybe unpleasant people. But I went anyway, figuring "well, if there's no parking, I'll just turn around and go home, at least I get a drive to blow some of the stink off"

But I persisted, and did find a spot. The flea market was outside, and at first glimpse I was unimpressed (old John Grisham and similar paperbacks, old VHS tapes....) and then I saw a plastic tub of colorful things and nylon dolly hair. I sauntered over to look

Holy cats, Gen 1 My Little Ponies. Some of the more uncommon ones (the first one I spotted was a "friend," Cutiesaurus - yes, a dinosaur). They were marked $2 a piece.

Some of them had been painted. I ignored those, I figured I could deal with messed up hair and surface dirt and stains that were small; I didn't want to have to do a full renovation.

I wound up picking out four and paid the man.

Nightglider, Yum Yum (both from the "twice as fancy" line, one of my favorites), and then the two "friends of" - Cutiesaurus and Creamsickle (a giraffe). I think Creamsickle is in the best condition, she may just need a wash and her hair set. 

Unfortunately Nightglider's had her bangs trimmed, and I'm not capable of re-rooting so I'll just have to arrange her hair to hide the damage. The others have a few minor stains and like I said, they're filthy. (An insect - not a bedbug, I checked - crawled out of Yum Yum's mane). 

I was tired and didn't want to take them in the house (because what if there WERE bedbugs hiding in one?) so I tied them up in a bag and they're hanging on a hook in the garage until I have some time to treat them and wash them.

I think my first step will be to take either a box or a plastic tub that I can seal up, and saturate a paper towel with a "more environment friendly insecticide" I have ("safe for indoor use") and set it in there, and then put the Ponies in NOT TOUCHING IT and let the fumes do their work. 

And then after 24 hours or so, air them out, and then wash them. Maybe wait for a warm day and do it in a dishpan (I can get one just for this kind of thing) in the backyard. And then set their hair and tails (Yum Yum and Creamsickle have their tails braided, so that will make it easier, they'll be less frizzy).

And then use a magic eraser or something to see if I can reduce the small stains. They'll never be PERFECT but some of these are very expensive when "mint" condition, but now I have a representative for my collection.

I just have to find time to take care of  them; sometimes now it's hard to find time for self-care myself.

bad pain day

 hopefully this is just stress*

My teeth and jaw are hurting again. I suspect it's NOT bad teeth as it's at least five teeth, on both top and bottom, on one side. They are mostly sensitive to cold liquids. I can chew on them - I ate a bunch of "Goldfish crisps" which are like a hybrid of a pringle and a goldfish cracker and the cheddar ones are really pretty good without pain. 

And I can feel pain up in my jaw joint, so probably something like tmj. And I've been getting cramps in my neck, on the side where YEARS ago (like: 50 now, it was in a childhood swim class) I injured a muscle badly because it was a cold day and got a massive cramp in my neck and I just remember having to lie on the sofa for the rest of the day with a hot water bottle on my neck. 

My knee is also bothering me tonight and it was worse again today. I've got heat on it but I don't like how it feels. I didn't do anything unusual. We did have a surprise cold front come through; it was about 10-15 degrees colder than the predictions, so I was cold all day long after dressing for what I THOUGHT was going to be the weather.

(*you don't need to ask about what, I think, but also the fact that I'm teaching in three different buildings and having to schlep between them, and I have to make sure I have everything I need for every class, sometimes before I leave my building the afternoon before. And we had an intro lab fail because it turns out one of last semester's classes contaminated an indicator we needed and there's no way to make more of it, especially not on the short notice we had, and the custodians who were filling in for their ill colleague found out that he never retrieved many of the necessary supplies that are now in the closed-off part of the building and their supervisor told them under no circumstances were they allowed to go get them and I tried to track down another office that might be able to talk with the construction folks and arrange for a handoff, but I failed in that too, so it was just a Day of Fail and that makes it all worse)

But anyway. Everything is just frustrating and kind of sad, I've only knit a little bit on the Moon Moth sweater tonight, and it just feels like everything is harder and less-rewarding than it should be.

I wish they could have done the construction last summer, that would have been so much easier on us. But like a lot of things now, no one cares about others' discomfort.

Started something new

 I give my first exams of the semester later this week, and I decided I needed something easily portable to work on (Yes, the Moon Moth pullover is still in progress, but I'm not very many rounds from starting the colorwork, and that requires more concentration than invigilating allows)

So I thought about what I wanted to start as a next sweater. I had some Lion Brand "Respun," which is a recycled (post consumer waste) polyester yarn - so basically soda bottles. It's not the softest yarn ever, but it doesn't feel horrible; it reminds me a bit of the scratchier wools but not in an unpleasant way.

I had been wanting to make the "British School Slipover" from Folk Vests for a while, and I had enough of the yarn for that (it was kind of an impulse purchase). It's a golden yellow color they call "sunshine"

So I spent some time yesterday casting on. And found that the Knitters Pride "Dreamz" wooden needle just.... snapped....when I picked it back up after casting on. This was a size 4, so not tiny. And I didn't manhandle it, I was actually surprised when the wood split

I think wood is a bad material for needles; most of mine are bamboo and that seems sturdier - I think I've broken the small bamboo sock needles but that was by stepping on them or getting them caught in something and not realizing the strain that was on them.

I was able to move the stitches to a size 5 (it doesn't matter too much as it's the ribbing; when I swatched for the body a size 6 was the right size) and get it started, but I'm a little annoyed at that needle breaking.

Also yesterday was Candlemas (also known as Imbolc in other traditions, or St. Brigid's Day, or Groundhog day) and I decided to light a few candles for it

I should do that more often (as allergies permit), having the light there (different from the light from light bulbs) is pleasing and nice, and it is a nice small ritual to have in the evening when I'm home.

Imbolc once again

 Or Candlemas, or St. Brigid's Day, or Groundhog Day

Once again I remember the old, old blog-tradition - which I love, and miss, just as I miss the common "general interest" blogs. Oh, there are still a few, but fewer than there were in the early 00s.

Someone back then started a tradition of sharing a poem on this day. And it seems like a good tradition. And no matter what's happening in the world we need beauty, and we need good words, and if you're like me, you need poetry. 

Anyway, I may come up with a more widely-published one a bit lager, I have to pull one of my poetry books off the shelf and look at it. But I thought of this one, which I shared in October a couple years ago; it's from someone on Tumblr who calls themselves Mumblesplash:

"Hope is a weapon

Hope is a skill

Hope is a plant you can care for or kill 

Hope is a discipline 

Something you choose 

Hard to stop looking for 

Easy to lose

Hope isn’t something to have or to take 

If you can’t find it, it’s something you make 

Make it from willpower 

Make it from spite 

Learn how to weaponize love in a fight 

 Hope is a shield, and a thing to defend 

End in itself, and a means to an end." 

Because yeah; hope is really something I struggle with right now because (gestures at world). It's very easy for me now, especially given 2020's pandemic, to feel like when times are bad, they will ALWAYS be bad, and that's not good for my motivation to do anything - to plan research, to even read up on stuff for research, to knit, to work on the Moominhouse, to play piano, anything, because it feels like "if you could be wiped off the earth tomorrow, what will any of it matter? what will anything matter?" and that's hard. I hope the chaos slows soon, or there's more concentrated resistance, or something.But right now, I may HAVE to keep running on spite or willpower for the time being.

does it help?

 I don't even know. One thing I feel, as I look around at the world - and the news, and prominent people - is that there seems to be an increase in selfishness and even cruelty. And in a lot of cases, it feels like it's almost cruelty for cruelty's sake. (Several commentators have noted the return of "the r-word" (which was originally used to refer to someone with intellectual challenges)). 

Hearing it's coming back is a bit like a smack in the mouth to me. 

I've talked about being a bullied kid. I distinctly remember in relatively-early grade school (like: second grade, so that's what, seven? Seven year old were doing this to each other) being called that word, and someone yelling it behind me in the hall and when I flinched (because they yelled), "Look, it knows its name!"

Yeah, this is why I have trust issues.

Anyway, I look at the increasing meanness and I want to fight back. I mean, I can't literally fight and I'm too much of a pacifist to want to physically fight. But maybe symbolically I can fight back against the rising dark?

One thing that makes me feel good is being "useful" in small ways, or trying to make someone else's day better. 

Today, when my colleague had a bunch of plant specimens borrowed from the greenhouse for her lab (greenhouse is across campus; it's the horticulturalist's domain). So I helped her carry them down to the van to take them back. I didn't have to, but I wanted to. (Well, to be fair - I was also grading and needed a short break).

But I like doing things like that; I feel useful and it does make someone's day better.

I also had a student e-mail me; the short and non-identifiable summary is they had a family member pass away and the funeral is coming up, they apologized for missing class for it. I told them that my policy is that funerals count as excused absences and that they were welcome to come in if any of the material they missed (they have the textbook) was unclear to them. But I did start off by saying I was sorry for their loss. Because it doesn't cost me anything to do that, and maybe it makes the student's day a little less difficult 

But I don't know. I don't know if that helps or fixes anything. A lot of the time it feels like a drop in the ocean, that it's a tiny thing that gets erased by all the worse things. And a lot of times I wonder if I'm a chump or a patsy for trying to be kind; it certainly does seem in our society now if you try to be kind you may get taken advantage of. 

It's so hard. Life seems harder now. It's hard to navigate the world; it's really been hard since COVID. And I don't always know what to do.

A long day

 We had a job candidate in. I raced around to do both classes and listen to their job talk.

Tonight, we went out to a local restaurant for dinner (this is SOP for job candidates, there's a departmental fund that covers the cost of everyone's meal).

We wound up staying pretty late; this was the first time all the professors in my department had been all in the same room in well over a month - we're awfully scattered now with having to teach in different buildings.

So we told a lot of stories. A couple of the newer people heard some of the wild old stories from the "old days" and I shared a couple of my grad school stories (like the time my too-cool-for-school student FREAKED THE FREAK OUT in the field when a stick bug landed on him, and I proceeded to gently lift it off his shoulder, hold it up for the class to see,, and talk a little bit about their ecology before releasing it to a nearby tree). Lots of laughter, which was good: I haven't laughed like that in a long time.

Another weekend thing

 I suspect like some of you, I'm kind of reeling from what I am (politely) calling the Firehose of Excrement - all of the wild EOs coming out, the churn, the wildly unqualified people being floated for high ranking positions and I felt like I needed something to watch that was kind of the equivalent of bubble gum for the brain.

Flipping around, I found that Sundance* was rerunning all the episodes of "Gilligan's Island."

Yeah, that would be silly enough.

(*yes I know they used to show the more arthouse kind of movies, so I guess they're now in the same decline that TLC, Discovery, A&E, and other "once-time intellectual" channels have gone through for like 20 years, but whatever)

I watched a bunch of episodes. It served as pleasant-enough background noise. 

The other thing is, I have vague memories of the show. Yes, it went off the air like a year or two before I was born, I remember watching it in re-runs as a small child (probably on channel 43, the old indie channel out of Cleveland. (The internet tells me the call letters were WUAB. That seems right, even though I don't really remember them).

When I was like 4 or 5, it was my *favorite* show in the whole wide world. I loved Gilligan, I guess I kind of wanted to be Mary Ann,, I just enjoyed the whole thing. I just BARELY remember how much I loved it; I don't even remember any of the plots. 

I think I tried to watch an episode or two some years back; it's possible one of the Detroit area indie channels played it when I was in college. I couldn't watch it; it had what was then one of my most-hated tropes - adults acting like children (ALL of the characters, though Gilligan, who I guess was supposed to be in his 20s, and Mr. Howell, who was probably supposed to be in his 50s or 60s** seemed the worst offenders)

(**I assume that. People in those days aged faster. I read somewhere that "Lovie" was in her early 60s when she was on the show but didn't want people to know she was that old. )

But that didn't bother me this go-round. (And yes, it's not entirely held up; a lot of the "exotic South Sea Natives" stuff is extremely cringy and racist). But fundamentally, that stuff aside? It's actually a pretty good-hearted sitcom and I found myself watching more episodes than I intended. The characters worked oddly well together. Nothing too terrible happens, or if it seems to have happened (Gilligan fearing he's turned into a vampire), they're resolved in 22 minutes or so. 

Honestly though I think that's one of the things about sitcoms and some cartoons - no matter what happens, you know things will be restored in the end, and everyone will be back again, healthy and happy, for next week. And yes, that's very unrealistic for real life, but honestly one of the things that stinks about real life is that there are bad changes: people you love die. Or move away. Or you get injured and wind up disabled. Or couples break up. And so it's kind of restful to see a situation where as the next show begins, there's everyone, just fine and back at baseline. 

And there aren't even really any true antagonists! If anything, it's more a "man against nature" story, though even then, nature is not so very mean, at least once they're on the island. The main "friendship problems" our characters face are just that - "you threw a party and I thought you didn't invite me!" (when in fact, that person was a Special Guest, who gets a special invitation). Or "it's not fair that I always get stuck with that chore on the chore wheel" or there's a misunderstanding and someone has hurt feelings until it's worked out. But none of the problems are terrible! No one is diagnosed with a terminal illness, no one gets involved with some cult (well, for very long), no one leaves (well, they can't!)

And yeah, it's a very unrealistic show. Coconut tech and all. But if you remind yourself it's just a show and you should really just relax, it's kind of fun. I mean, it's a "bottle episode" every week - they're stuck on the island, they'll be there again next week, nothing ever really changes.

perhaps in real life "nothing ever really changes" would be bad, and there are ways it could be done grimdark (now I think of Sartre's "Huis Clos" (No Exit) and realize that THAT is basically a "bottle episode," but it's three souls stuck in Hell. And yes, I'm aware of the "seven deadly sins" interpretation of Gilligan's Island, and also of the variant "six deadly sins and Gilligan is the devil" but my brain tends not to go there) 

It is a funny tendency in "modern" people to want to make things grim and dark. I don't know. I find life grim enough sometimes; I want things light and fluffy and I can watch Gilligan's Island as something purely fluffy - the characters are ridiculous but never malicious to each other, the problems are cleared up easily enough,. And there's coconut cream pie sometimes.

Some weekend things

 *I guess I missed Friday. I wasn't feeling very well; I wound up staying late over at school to work on stuff and I've been having sinus trouble (either that or I have several teeth that are failing; sinus trouble seems far more likely and the teeth are less painful this evening [I can eat again with minimal discomfort])

* I had to take a run out Saturday. For one thing I desperately needed to see something other than the four walls of my living room, but also I needed to replace the hot-mist humidified (my  old one died). So I went to Sherman. 

I went to lunch first, but then to Michael's. I didn't buy a LOT of stuff, but I had bought a pattern for a crocheted kobold (a creature not unlike, but also different from, a dragon) from someone on Etsy named Libbydoodles and none of the yarn for toys that I had seemed right. I wanted a really bright color - either a green or an orange or maybe even a hot pink.

I found this

It's almost obnoxiously orange. It's a lot stronger colored in person - it's like if lava were fluorescent. It will be perfect. 

* I also went to Target (I know, I know, some people are boycotting them for Reasons but when you live where I live, boycotting the few stores around mean you either have to mail order stuff and wait and pay expensive shipping, do without, or shop somewhere that's not any "purer." I admit I have issues with the "boycott everyone" mentality)

I got my humidifier, and some food to have ahead and a set of sheets to replace a worn-out one (I don't REALLY need more sheets, but these were those Pillowfort ones and they had pegasuses on them)

And then I found this

I don't NEED more stuffed animals, but I made the "mistake" of picking her up. She is very soft and is weighted with pellets in the back end, so she feels more like a "real animal" when you hold her. I admit, I broke into a big silly grin right there in the aisle as I hugged her, and said to the two young (late teen or early 20s) women browsing the aisle: "I'm almost 56 but I am buying this for MYSELF." They laughed, but it was not the horrible mocking excluding laugh; rather it was a "yeah we get it" laugh - and one of them did comment that the stuffies on that aisle were "wonderful"

Her name is Princess.

She is very nice to hug when you're distressed. I did have to do a tiny repair; I noticed when standing in the checkout line that there was a TINY hole (probably something that happened in production, like the fabric got snagged) on one side of her shoulders,, but I knew I had thread the right color, so rather than get out of line (the lines were long and moved slowly) and also put this one (which I had ALREADY named Princess) back, I decided to just say nothing and fix the hole at home. Which I did.

I haven't washed the new sheets yet, again, with my sinus issues I haven't felt as energetic about doing things these past couple days. Hopefully things start to get better - my nose has been draining and I think the humidifier helps.

* I'm slowly picking away on the Moon Moth sweater; I'm within a dozen rounds of being able to start the colorwork, which will be more interesting to do

Another crocheted thing

 I forgot I made this over break! I had taken and draped him over the back of the blanket chest in my bedroom and stopped seeing him for a few days.

It's a fairly simple pattern that's probably "made" by the yarn choice - the original pattern called for one of the thinner (roughly dk weight) chenille yarns, but I could not find any I liked, so I bought one of the big thick "blanket" type yarns (a superbulky) and a big crochet hook, and just made a BIG fuzzy snake:

I *think* it was a Loops and Threads yarn (I didn't keep the ballband), it's a slightly varigated gray-green with a little blue. 

It's a very simple pattern but effective in the chenille. You can see the snake is large; the original one in the pattern was small enough to easily wind around a wrist.

This snake is a lot bigger. (It varies how much a toy "scales up" as you change the weight of the yarn; this is almost the biggest change a person can make, going from dk to super bulky).

The tongue is out of a worsted weight - just scraps of red I had. And the eyes are either 12 or 15 mm lock washer eyes (I forget what I had but it worked. 

I named the snake "Noodle" because, well, he's noodle shaped, and a lot of people joke about "danger noodles" (though in truth, MOST North American snakes are not dangerous at all, and are in fact real garden allies because they either eat bugs you might not want around, or they eat rodents. I've often said I'd welcome a black rat snake if it wanted to come into my yard to live. 

As long as I know for sure it's non-venomous (we do have a couple venomous species you have to watch out for), I'm happy to share space with snakes - oh, I don't try to pick them up unless I have to move them to a safer spot (as I've sometimes done with rough earth snakes when I'm gardening), because I don't want to disturb them. I've seen rough green snakes occasionally, which are pretty little snakes and are very easily identifiable out in the field (they are the only species I know that is that vivid green). They're also supposed to be pretty docile, but as I said - I don't want to risk harming the snake so I don't try to pick them up, I just observe them. (Black rat snakes usually boogie out of the area when they feel you coming - snakes can't really hear but they can sense vibrations, and that's another reason for using a walking stick in the field, most venomous snakes will take off if they feel vibrations on the ground)

switched to socks

 I needed something smaller, where I could see actual progress on it, tonight. So I pulled out the "Roadside Attraction" socks (pattern by Star Athena, pattern is on Ravelry)

I'm about half way through the cuff on the first sock

This is yarn that was kind of an impulse purchase for the colorway name, but I like how it's knitting up. I thought the yarn would look different; here it is in the skein:

The bright colors are less noticeable in the knit-up swatch. The brown is a lot more prominent, but I could tell that when I wound off the yarn:

The color name is "Griswold Family Christmas Tree" - referring to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I presume it's referencing the tree that (I think it was) Uncle Louis burned up with his cigar (because the tree was so dry), and that's the brown.  It's actually a prettier yarn than the reference makes it seem.

(There's also another, um, "brown" reference from that movie; the "[It] was full" line with the goofy cousin dumping his RV's sewage tank into the storm sewer. There was actually a pretty funny local car dealer at (in Peoria - when I was up visiting my mom) where they re-created a cleaned up version of that scene, with "Clark" and his wife looking out at "Cousin Eddy" who was......charging up the electric cars on the lot. "Lot's full!" he exclaimed happily. It was actually a pretty good recreation of the bit. Most local car dealer ads can be pretty rancid, so the fact that this one was GOOD and made me laugh the first couple times I saw it was kind of nice)

Tuesday evening things

 * I added a few more rounds this evening to the ongoing Moon Moth sweater. It feels like I knit more slowly now, even when I devote time to it (I never have more than about an hour and a half or two in the evenings, though). I really want to get to the colorwork part; that will feel like progress

* I finished reading "Death of an Author" (ECR Lorac) last night, even if it meant I stayed up later than I intended. It was quite good for these "golden era" mystery novels; but Lorac (which is a pseudonym for Edith Caroline Rivett) is one of the better writers of these; I've read several of hers. In this one she....perhaps twits some of her critics a bit, both with the "no, a woman couldn't write this" bit (when it was thought the young woman secretary was *actually* the mystery writer in the novel) and also "oh yes, many authors have multiple pen names, they use one for mysteries, another for romances, and yet another for belles-lettres" (Lorac herself wrote in several genres and used different pseudonyms).

It was a well plotted out story and I didn't QUITE guess what was up with it until the very end, though the pieces slowly did fall into place (=Lorac "played fair" by the old rules of mystery-writing)

*I admit I feel a little....maybe, bad? that I read so much of these rather than more "serious" or "literary" books, and I do get that they're more an entertainment than anything. I did start (re-start, I stalled on it a while back) "Braiding Sweetgrass" which is essays by a woman who is both an ecologist and Native American (a member of the Potawatomi tribe). I do want to read more scholarly things.

* I am on Day 2 of doing about 30 minutes of reading at the end of the day before I can go home. I may not do it tomorrow; I'd either have to go BACK to my office after class on central campus all day, or bring the book with me (another thing to carry) and also find a quiet place to sit and read. I think every other day of the week I can do it; I end up in my office either because of office hours or because two of the three labs I teach are in the building.

* Had my first "real" nonmajors lab today. I'll see how they did when the TA gets them graded but they  seemed to do....pretty well? And they were certainly friendly to me in class. My memories of that class are that people were very resentful and resistant to being there because it was a "required" class (and there were several years where the department chair pressed the administration to downweight the scores on that class' evaluations because of the resentment factor). But maybe I got lucky with this class, or students have changed. 

* Tomorrow is my longest day, then Thursday is my easiest (I'm done at noon; last week I used that day to do a necessary run to Sherman for Target and Ulta, and also a side trip to the yarn shop). This week I'll probably do grocery shopping in town, but probably on Thursday afternoon. (I'm still trying to figure out what day the wal mart is best stocked,, for the things I have to get there - Saturday morning the shelves are pretty bare)

Welp.

 I did not use my weekend profitably. I guess I did a little housekeeping on Saturday and I had Zoom knitting and did some knitting, but I also mostly hung out online and today was a not good day because of Reasons. I have decided I have to let myself remain a bit ignorant about the sausage that's rapidly being made because a few of the eo's I saw were somewhat upsetting (hopefully there is pushback, or things that can't actually be done) and so I'm gonna have to avoid the news for my own mental health because I have no power to change or fix anything (which is deeply upsetting to me; I can't make anything better for anyone, so why do I even exist?)

I'm trying to remember what I said roughly eight years ago, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," meaning I keep doing what good I think I can do even if it seems futile. 

I did pull out the Moon Moth pullover and added a few rounds to it, but it's such slow going - I still have fifteen rounds before I even start the colorwork. And it was hard to find anything to watch on tv, so much of it was stuff I did not want to see or think about. I find it's increasingly hard for me to stay in a chair and work on "optional" things - I can get the stuff on a deadline done, but when it's something just for me, it's hard. I do think the past few years have done something to my brain and I don't like it. (And right now, I'm not going to even consider the ADHD assessment or anything, I don't think anything good can come of that, at least in the near future)

I have to remember tomorrow afternoon to grab the stuff I need for Wednesday's lab, so I have it. That's another thing: teaching in different buildings require a level of organization and remembering that's more than I normally have to do, and it's tiring - there's no running down the hall (or, in lab  - popping in to the prep room attached to the lab) to get a forgotten thing, you either have to have it, be able to do without it, or waste 10-15 minutes of class going back to get it. 

 

Some Friday things

 * I got to thinking about how many I need to do more research/scholarly reading, and thought of the idea of what used to be called SSR ("Sustained Silent Reading," which went by other names, but that was what my school called it). This was a feature of primary grades, I remember it even from first grade, where I guess most of the kids knew how to read. You could get a book out of the classroom library or bring one from home or bring a library book you had checked out. 

I likely won't stick with it - I know I haven't stuck with other "get more reading done" plans in the past, especially as things get busy and I have evening meetings. But I did it today.

* The rooms seem slightly better. On Wednesday, an early-arriving student helped me rearrange the tables into a better configuration of rows, and they stayed like that, so it's possible only folks from Biology are using this room, or at least the other people teaching in it don't insist on moving the tables back. I mean, I won't be TOO surprised to walk in some day and see them all shoved back into the squares, but at least for now that's easier. 

And I got the computer lab reserved for my ecology labs that need it. Things are harder when it's not your own building and you feel like you have to ask permission really nicely for everything (in my building, if you need the computer room, you just check with the secretary to be sure no one else reserved it first)

* I ran to Sherman/Dension yesterday afternoon. I needed some things only the Target has, and some things from Ulta. It wasn't ideal, going after teaching (and after trying to build the little metal table for our drying oven that goes in my "new" lab space) but at least I got those things, and got in one trip to the little yarn shop. (Given all the talk of tariffs, and how companies are going to line up for "consideration" to avoid them, and how I suspect the various suppliers of craft supplies will be left out, I am bracing for yarn to become largely unaffordable to me. I hope I'm wrong. But also, I see now JoAnn's has declared bankruptcy AGAIN and I find myself wondering if everything I value and use here is going to go away, and I'm a little sad)

*These past few years have been a LOT to process. I know I'm still carrying - if it's not too precious to use this word - trauma from the pandemic in 2020 and every headline I hear about H5N1 or the potential erosion of our public-health structure has me worried. I know I really internalized in 2020 that "no one really cares very much about you" because I had very few people checking up on me - there were folks I knew that I literally did not hear from for a year and a half - and when I tried to get in touch with a few folks locally (through texts, mainly) I got brushed off and yeah, I know a lot of people were going through the same difficult things I was, but....it would have helped for someone to have texted back. So I really do figure when bad things happen, I'm on my own to figure it out and survive it, and I don't like that, but I'm also afraid now of being brushed off or rejected if I reach out. 

* And yeah, I heard about Georgia no longer selling eggs or poultry products and maybe I comb through my vintage cookbooks for WWII era cakes to be made without eggs, if eggs become hard to find or prohibitively expensive. I remember I made that "wacky cake" (which has no eggs, milk, or butter in it - which also means it's vegan) a couple times in 2020, when things like eggs and sometimes even milk were in short supply. But again, it feels like so many small privations and unpleasantnesses, and there feel like there's not really any compensation for them, and it's hard not to wonder if things will ever be better, or if this is just the start of a long downward spiral.....

Yes, I'm probably overtired and should just go to bed.

Another finished thing

 Back in early November, when I was down at the yarn shop one weekend, I saw a skein of dk yarn I really liked - it's one of the Dream in Color yarns; I think the colorway was called Time Away. I found a simple fingerless mitt pattern (it was one designed where you could insert a colorwork pattern - and I guess I get free access to those patterns since I bought the pattern). I just wanted simple mitts but this one worked because it took the right amount of yarn (it wasn't inexpensive yarn and I didn't want to need to buy two skeins)

I finished them over break

It's a clever design: you knit them in the round up to the point where you want the opening for the thumb, and then you knit back and forth for a while ("knit flat") and then rejoin in the round after the thumb hole is done.

it leaves like a little "keyhole" for your thumb:

Even though they're designed for colorwork, they work for plain yarn. I think a person could also insert some textured patterns (like knit/purl patterns) in it, and they might even be loose enough to support a small cable up the back, but if you wanted to do a lot of cables, or a really large (wide) cable, you might need to add stitches (and you'd have to adjust how you worked it during the knit-flat part)

They're also nice and warm - a heavier yarn and no lacy openings to let the wind in

the current socks

 I finished the first of the Gusto ombre-yarn socks. I decided to start the second one from the opposite end of the color progression - the first sock I knit from the outside of the yarn cake. I realized after finishing the sock it would be hard to get the second one *just exactly* at the same point (it's not like with a regular striping yarn, where you can do your starting stitch at the point where one color changes to another) and sometimes "a little bit off" looks a lot worse than "lots off" so I decided to start from the center of the ball on the second ball. So now I'm working with colors that "didn't make" it into the first sock, because it doesn't take 100% of a ball:

I expect the colors will "meet up" (like the old problem of the eastbound train and the westbound train and where they pass each other) somewhere around the heel.

and some books

 I bought a couple books over break.The biggest and most expensive one was a Muppets amigurumi book:

(This is a photo I took at my mom's house of the things I was sending back to me, in case they got lost or damaged in the mail). 

In the Muppets book, there are many of the familiar ones - Kermit, and Piggy, and Fozzie, and Gonzo and Camilla, and Animal, and even some ones like the Snowths (from Mahna Mahna). And Sam the Eagle.

One thing I like is that they suggest the yarns, and they are common yarns you can find at places like Michael's or JoAnn's. Another thing that tickles me is that unlike a lot of these types of books, this one is "official" (in the sense that the author actually works for Muppet Studios, and it has their blessing). 

I haven't started either the one on  the lady pirate, or the Raymond Carver book of short stories 

I HAD finished "Cry the Beloved Country," so I sent it back to myself. I said early on in the reading of it "this will probably make me sad" and yes, there were points where it was sad - a lot of painful things happen to Stephen Kumalo, the protagonist - he is (IIRC) of Zulu heritage, and is a minister. He and his wife live in the country; their grown son went to Johannesburg and got himself in trouble (and was condemned to die for it). And Kumalo travels to Jo'burg to both find his son, his sister. He finds his sister, she has a son. He invites her to move back with him and his wife, but she does a runner (he does sort of adopt the young son). 

He also finds his son (Absalom, and having been raised in Sunday school and seeing that name, I knew it would end sadly for him) and also the young woman (not much more than a girl) who is going to have his son's child.

In the end - his son is lost, his sister is lost, but he adopts his son's girlfriend and his nephew and bring them back to the country. 

There's also a parallel in Jarvis, the white farmer (an Anglo person, not an Afrikaaner) who loses HIS son - and whose wife dies in the book.

So a lot of sad things happen. At one point Kumalo contemplates moving from his long-time posting, feeling that the shame of what his son did, and perhaps the secondary shame of his sister abandoning her child, might make the people think less of him. But there's a very touching scene where he comes back from Johannesburg and EVERYONE is so excited and happy to see him again. And in the end, he decides to stay - and sees improvements in the place where he lives, and mentors a young man who comes to work in the town.

One of the things that struck me - of course Paton was a Christian and considered faith a lot in the book. And I think that's partly why, although sad things happened, there's still a sense of hope.

And there's a passage that struck me especially, and I went and got the book to look it back up:

"I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi*. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew there is no life without suffering...."

(*umfundisi is "parson" or "preacher" - it's a respectful term for a man of the cloth, and most people in the book refer to Kumalo by this term). 

The idea that life will not be free of suffering. Yes, that's true. But that it also can be borne. Though some times it is very hard.  

At any rate: an excellent book, you feel you learn (a little bit) about the South Africa of the time** and you also get a bit of meditation on hope and suffering.

(**I have had students from South Africa; the one I know best is a Black African, he never mentioned his tribal affiliation, but I also, years ago, had an Anglo South African)

I'm currently reading a more lightweight book - ECR Lorac's "Death of an Author" which is actually an interesting and well-written mystery, where part of the mystery is the identity of an author who wrote very popular mysteries - was he the man supposed to have written them, or was that man a figurehead and the young woman who was his secretary actually the writer? And was the body found the missing (male) author? It's doubly interesting because the book's author (Lorac) was a woman, and she sometimes seems to have taken some grief for "but this doesn't 'sound like' how a woman would write" and I get the sense she wrote this novel to twit some of her critics. (I've read other of Lorac's mysteries; of these Golden Age British mysteries they are some of the better ones, both in terms of writing and complexity of plot)

First day done

 I survived the first day of being "in exile" when my building is being worked on. (Update: no construction crews have shown up as of yet, and there's no ETA, so I presume we were all chivvied to get everything moved for no reason)

The room where I teach two of my three lectures is miserable. It's too small for the class sizes, the person who ordinarily uses it (someone in English or Modern Languages) has it set with the tables arranged in squares ("seminar formation"). I had to get help from my first class to arrange them in rows but if they're back in squares on Wednesday maybe I just pull them a little to separate them, and have people sit on both sides where they can see the screen? I do NOT have the energy and it's not fair to the students to expect to move them every time.

I didn't put them back and I half expect to get an angry e-mail about having moved them, and I absolutely won't move them back - two of the three days I'm in that room I have a 1 pm lab (after getting done with lecture at noon) and moving the tables back mean I won't be prepared for lab/won't have time to eat the lunch I brought and I'm sorry, I am NOT doing that.

I may just say "screw it" and go and lecture over Zoom, even though both I and the students hate it

2025 is going to be a terrible year; I can sense it already.

I don't know. I'm tired and sad and I hurt (lots more walking today, nowhere for me to sit down in my new room, have to go up and down multiple stairs). I almost "bonked out" (low blood sugar) at the end of my second lecture. 

Ah well, 45 more days of this (M, W, F for 16 weeks except for Martin Luther King Jr. day and Good Friday). Maybe I figure out something like an "advent calendar" where I can count down and periodically get a treat for not breaking down in tears or yelling at someone about how bad the circumstances are. 

I also have CWF tonight so in a moment I have to get my stuff together for that. I'm doing the lesson so I can't skip it....

it was "trifficult"

 The biggest project I made over break what the crocheted Bluey. This was from "Chiliphilly" on the official Bluey ABC (Australian Broadcasting) website.

They warn it's a complicated pattern - yes, they used Bingo's portmanteau word "trifficult" (tricky+difficult) from the Favorite Thing episode. Also, there was one small omission for the snout on the .pdf of the pattern, but those lines were there on the html formatted pattern. (I had a printout of the .pdf but wound up having to look up the original on my phone when I hit a point where I didn't know how to proceed, because the instructions for about five rows were missing on the .pdf)

I didn't have the IDEAL colors; the main body is a bit greyer blue than it should be, and c3 (the pale blue) kind of doesn't blend well. But it's hard with US big-box stores; as it was I had to mix several brands of yarn that were of slightly different weights despite all them being labeled worsted/aran. 

In the end, also, I did the eyes of felt applique, since I had black and white felt, because at that point I was getting tired of crocheting and also wasn't sure I could make the "slip stitch them on and then slip stitch around them" to look good, so I just kind of freehand cut until things looked right and then appliqued them on.

She's not very big, but is a good size - maybe about 9" tall?

Also, you are kind of mosaic crocheting the color changes in, and that's fiddly to do and HARD to get right. The belly is a little off center and I admit were I designing the pattern I might have done the belly as a separate "patch" that you then applique on. 

Still, I think it was a good time to do the project - it took me the better part of a week to finish in around other things, and I had had the yarn since late summer. I wound up leaving the partial balls of leftovers up at my mom's to save room coming home in my suitcase

She has little fingers which are fairly cleverly made. Again, I'd recommend that this is a pattern best for really expert crocheters, ideally folks who've done that mosaic/intarsia style crochet before. I had not and I found it frustrating and I didn't get it right everywhere (fortunately the "center strip" of her nose is almost covered by the snout, and at least the place where it was off-center the worst was covered.)

Back home again

 So my train ticket turned out to be for like one of the two days the Texas Eagle was able to run; it was cancelled on the previous Saturday and Sunday because of the ice and snow in Missouri (I think everyone thought the ice storm was going to be worse than it was; at least the local-to-my-mom weather reporting seemed to think it was going to be bad. But the trains got back running Monday. And I'm glad I didn't panic and call to change my reservation for today or Friday because now WE'RE getting lots of snow and cold temperatures and apparently they cancelled the Texas Eagle for both today and tomorrow. 

So I got back on the one good day. The Kroger was kind of a nightmare but I managed to get food, nothing was TOTALLY out of stock (at least not the things I was buying, maybe frozen pizzas were gone), it was just really crowded and took a long time to get through the checkout. 

Now, today, we've had snow. Not as much as anticipated, and it seems like the lower layer, at least on my porch, was already melting. We're supposed to get more tomorrow, campus closed, so I didn't try to go into my office (the roads look very slick, and on cold days it tends to be cold in my office anyway)

But it wasn't the 9" they predicted

Use the right hand scale - that's my sock ruler. It's barely 2 1/2".

But anyway.

Once I was reasonably sure I'd get back as scheduled (and therefore didn't need to deal with a bunch of logistical issues), the last days of break were fine. 

I did only finish a few things. This is the first one - part of my Christmas present to my mom, so she has them now:

A pair of socks in West Yorkshire Spinner's "British birds" sockyarn; the color is called Kingfisher. I'm pleased with how well the two matched; even when you try often the patterning on the second sock is slightly off from the first.

I think she liked them. 

Anyway, the last day or two of break was spent getting ready to come back here: doing laundry, figuring out how to repack my luggage with the Christmas presents I received (mostly clothes:  a dress and a skirt and a pair of casual trousers and some new pajamas) and picking out things to send back (a couple of the older turtlenecks, and a box of books that I had bought/had finished reading while I was up there). 

And you know, the old sort of loneliness (not QUITE that, but similar - maybe incipient homesickness? Even though I only lived in Illinois, really, for not-quite 10 years, and I've lived here longer - 25 years - than I have anywhere) settled over me again - break was over, work would start up again, it would be back to making my own food (and having to DECIDE what to eat instead of my mom suggesting something and me agreeing to it), and dealing with bills and other people and meetings and everything. 

And also, yeah, I miss my mom's town. I have good memories of there; graduate school was in many ways the happiest time of my life and while much of the town has changed (Babbitt's bookstore is gone, the little "nature" store that used to sell small animal toys and birdfeeders and the like is gone, much of uptown has gentrified in a way that prices out many students and probably also many professors from the restaurants and shops), still, parts of it are still the same. The post office - it's not appreciably changed in maybe 30 years, and I think that was where I felt the nostalgia the strongest. 

My mom and I also talked, as we drove around town about things that were gone now - Bergner's, which is where a lot of my clothes came from, is long gone. (I think Kohl's and Von Maur are the only true department store type places left). The Golden West, a small steakhouse that was the sole survivor of a sixties-era chain, is gone - that one, especially hurts because it was a reasonably-priced restaurant but really quite good food (most things were made in-house, and they got good cuts of meat)

There have been new things that are good. I drank many bubble teas from Fusion Brew, which is a small shop I really like - everyone there is friendly, and the various drinks I've had have been good, and it just has a pleasant vibe. 

And I will say the small Jewel supermarket where my mom shops (less than a mile from here house) has a good selection, they have a better selection of things than any supermarket I have in town, at any rate. 

But anyway, all breaks have to end. So Tuesday my mom drove me down to the station and even though I told her to get home again before it got very dark out (she's had cataract surgery and doesn't like driving at night), she still stuck around until 4:30 or so when the train pulled out:

 And now I'm back here. Christmas is put away for another year, I've got clean sheets I COULD put on the bed this evening, I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow (campus is still closed; we're supposed to get more snow overnight).

Not yet Epiphany

 I’m still up here, in Illinois. Christmas was quiet but good, except a couple days after I either got something I have a food intolerance to (carry out food) or I had a little stomach bug.

I think it was the former; norovirus spreads like crazy and while I tried not to get too close to my mom, we didn’t totally isolate and she didn’t get it. Also I was not as sick as I’d be with Norovirus.

Anyway, we haven’t yet taken down the decorations so I took a short video of an old, old one - we’ve had it since I was a small child in the early 1970s. 

I think these were pretty common once upon a time but it’s now hard to find the C7 twinkle lights for them.

Three old things

 ...I had actually planned to write more time-embargoed posts Wednesday morning before leaving but (a) the power outage kind of bricked my ability to do much other than run around doing the last minute things and (b) I was kind of tired and low-motivation after a poor night of sleep.

But anyway. Here are some more old toys of mine my mom found in her sorting and cleaning. She asked me if I wanted them and I said yes, because I have memories of these. I didn't think they still existed.

They're a trio of finger puppets. As I remember, at least the elephant came as a premium with a tube of toothpaste. They may all have; I seem to remember getting the lion in my Christmas stocking one year, but it's also possible he came off the same brand of toothpaste. 

I named them as a kid. For a while I couldn't remember the hippo's name but I'm pretty sure not I remember it as George (this would have been before the "George and Martha" hippo books, however)

The pink elephant is Emily. Of course she has to be a girl, she's pink.

The lion is named Roary. 

They're sort of a soft, rubbery plastic and unfortunately they've picked up a few stains from contact with other items. Some time I might try cleaning them gently to see if I can get the surface stains off

Emily's trunk is slightly damaged; I think I chewed on it a bit as a small child. (Gen-Xers are probably about 20% microplastics given what we were exposed to as kids)

I'm happy to have these back. I'll have to find a good place to display them

My 2024 tree

 Since I've had a camera I can take video with, I've done this every year. This is this year's tree (the one at my house; I took this video on the 17th)

I focused a bit more on the new or newer-to-me ornaments: Bluey and Bingo, the Jewel Brites, the Bernard-and-Bianca one I bought.

Many of the ornaments on there are "vintage," either ones I've had for 25 years (the little fruit shaped ones) or are old ones I purchased from Etsy or antique shops. 

(I had to refilm it in two parts because of the upload size limit)

A Christmas poem

 This is by Longfellow. It's one of my favorites, and, this year, is kind of Big Mood, as the kids (at least used to) say. Yes, it was written during the Civil War (if I remember, Longfellow had a son grievously wounded while fighting in the Union Army.

It's been modified into a Christmas carol; there are various versions out there, some of them with not very good instrumentations. The verses are swapped around a bit and the one specifically referencing the war left out, but it still hits much the same. The last two stanzas in particular, though I admit this year I feel the penultimate one much more strongly than I do the last one.

Christmas Bells

HW Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
    "For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

EB White's Greeting

 This is an older one, apparently from 1952. EB White (yes, that EB White) published it in the New Yorker: EB White's Christmas Greeting

In it, he remembers the unremembered, the odd, the lonely, and even, what he jokingly labels "the despised" (he calls "intellectuals" as being in this group, things have not changed much I guess)

I've cut and pasted the whole thing here to save you clicking but you can of course if you wish. 

This piece definitely conjures up images.

 

E. B. White's Christmas -1952

 From this high midtown hall, undecked with boughs, unfortified
with mistletoe, we send forth our tinselled greetings as of
old, to friends, to readers, to strangers of many conditions
in many places.

Merry Christmas to uncertified accountants, to tellers who have
made a mistake in addition, to girls who have made a mistake in
judgment, to grounded airline passengers, and to all those who
can't eat clams! We greet with particular warmth people who
wake and smell smoke. To captains of river boats on snowy
mornings we send an answering toot at this holiday time.

Merry Christmas to intellectuals and other despised minorities!

Merry Christmas to the musicians of Muzak and men whose shoes
don't fit! Greetings of the season to unemployed actors and the
blacklisted everywhere who suffer for sins uncommitted; a holly
thorn in the thumb of compilers of lists!

Greetings to wives who can't find their glasses and to poets who
can't find their rhymes!

Merry Christmas to the unloved, the misunderstood, the overweight.
Joy to the authors of books whose titles begin with the word "How"
(as though they knew!). Greetings to people with a ringing in
their ears; greetings to growers of gourds, to shearers of sheep,
and to makers of change in the lonely underground booths!

Merry Christmas to old men asleep in libraries! Merry Christmas to
people who can't stay in the same room with a cat! We greet, too,
the boarders in boarding hoses on 25 December, the duennas in
Central Park in fair weather and foul, and young lovers who got
nothing in the mail.

Merry Christmas to people who plant trees in city streets; Merry
Christmas to people who save prairie chickens from extinction!
Greetings of a purely mechanical sort to machines that think--
plus a sprig of artificial holly. Joyous Yule to Cadillac owners
whose conduct is unworthy of their car!

Merry Christmas to the defeated, the forgotten, the inept; Joy
to all dandiprats and bunglers! We send, most particularly and
most hopefully, our greetings and our prayers  to soldiers and
guardsmen on land and sea and in the air-- the young men doing
the hardest things at the hardest time of life. To all such,
Merry Christmas, blessings, and good luck! We greet the
Secretaries-designate, the President-elect; Merry Christmas to our
new leaders, peace on earth, good will, and good management!

Merry Christmas to couples unhappy in doorways! Merry Christmas
to  all who think they are in love but aren't sure!

Greetings to people waiting for trains that will take them in the
wrong direction, to people doing up a bundle and the string is
too short, to children with sleds and no snow! We greet ministers
who can't think of a moral, gagmen who can't think of a joke.

Greetings, too, to the inhabitants of other planets; see you soon!

And last, we greet all skaters on small natural ponds at the edge
of woods toward the end of afternoon. Merry Christmas, skaters!
Ring, steel! Grow red, sky! Die down, wind!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morrow!

 

Very Mall Christmas

 I know I posted at least one of these last year, but I kind of like them. They are very evocative to those of us who were kids in the 1970s who got dragged to the mall or Kmart with our parents:

this is the motherlode - 8 hours long, and as far as I've listened into it, no announcements or words.

There are the Kmart ones, too, but be aware some have old ads or announcements (there was a "Security to section 3!" announcement that's slightly uncanny if you're not expecting it. I guess Bart tried to abscond with a copy of Bonestorm...)

I dunno. I just kind of like these as background music. During exam week I swapped out the "lofi beats" I often listen to while grading for this. It's much the same thing - unobtrusive, in this case vaguely cheerful, no lyrics that will distract me, just kind of the aural equivalent of "snow" on an old tv - it covers up the silence or other noises without demanding your attention

I know when I was a kid, "easy listening" (as it was called back then) was much reviled and derided. It was geezer music! It was dumb and derivative!

but you know? secretly I kind of liked it. Again, for similar reasons - it was sort of an auditory blur that didn't demand attention but also covered up other noises or anxious thoughts. It occurs to me that the modern "lofi hip hop" is not that far different from it, really, just a slightly different style, and largely electronic rather than whatever instruments were used to produce the 70s "easy listening"

and yes, it does play a role - I find it helps when I'm anxious or when my head feels full of bees to have some friendly noise going to cover up some of the discomfort. And it is a companion when grading or doing some other repetitive task where you don't want to be distracted by lyrics. 

And I know why they used this in stores - it gets loud with a lot of people shuffling around, and cash registers making noise (as they would have, back then) but lyrics would add another layer of confusing noise. So sort of bland instrumentals is what works best, and they're out there on the Internet now for those of us Gen Xers feeling a little homeless or rootless these days....

No, thank you

 So I woke up around 1 am to use the bathroom, as one does*

(*if one is a postmenopausal woman who drinks water overnight to avoid drying out)

Leaving the bathroom the power flickered (I run an air filter over night and it beeps when it loses power) and flickered a couple more times, and then went off altogether.

I first worried - old house, could the wiring be going dodgy even though it was updated before I bought the place. So I went to the front door an peeked out to see if the streetlight was on. It wasn't, and the across-the-street neighbor's wired-in generator was running, so I knew it was an O G and E issue, and not just my house.

So I opened up the app, reported the outage. Went back to bed but didn't fall asleep right away. Checked it again later - they have a map showing outages and they post restoration times. It said 3 am. So, okay. I went back to bed.

Checked it later, around 3:30, when I woke up and realized from the silence that the power was still out.
So then I started to worry. My garage has a strange conformation - an earlier owner put up a wall with cabinets between the back door in and the main garage, meaning there's now no way to just walk into the garage and pull the release for the door opener - so you can manually raise and lower the door (I don't know if you can do it without releasing it. I wasn't strong enough once before, and I suppose forcing it could wreck the mechanism).

But I started to wonder - if the power's not back, what do I do? I can't possibly ask someone to drive me to the station; it's 2 1/2 hours one way, so a five hour round trip, and I'd have to get someone to drive me BACK in January. Uber is not a thing here and I don't like to think how much an Uber for that distance would cost. 

I realized I'd HAVE to get my car out somehow. There's a small gap between the top of the cabinets and the roof, at its peak I MIGHT be able to squeeze through. But I didn't want to try climbing up there by myself; I told myself if the power didn't come back on by 11 or so, I'd try calling Dana, and if she were free, I'd ask if she could bring a small ladder (she has a pickup) and "spot" me while I climbed it. The problem would be getting down on the other side - the garage is small and tight and there's no easy space to just drop down to the floor, and I think at the weight I am currently at, landing on the car's  hood would dent it badly, at the very least. Then I wondered if I could use something to hook the release cord and put enough downward force on it from that distance to pull it. Then I wondered if anyone I knew knew someone who was very small (but tall enough to grab the cord) and agile and we could boost them up and have them pull the cord. Or maybe I could just force the door from the outside and if I damage the mechanism, I get it fixed when I come back?

So I didn't really sleep. I also kept checking and eventually they changed "restoration time" to basically "lol we don't know" so that didn't help. 

It was also getting cold in the house; I have gas heat but it requires an electric starter. I got up and grabbed another blanket and tried to sleep 

Finally, a bit after 6 am, there was a text: restoration time updated, will be 8:30 am

Well, okay, if that's true, I can work with that.

I also realized I had to pee again, so I got up. As I was walking back to bed the air filter beeped again, and the heat kicked on

THANK YOU JESUS POWER CAME BACK TWO HOURS EARLY

So I got up and the FIRST thing I did was grab the garage door opener and go into my sewing room (closest to it) and hit the button so the door opened. On the grounds of "If we lose power again at least I'll be able to get out, and will at least be able to charge my phone off the car charger" (I had been using its flashlight function and was worried about running out of charge)

But I then got up, and put my phone on the charger. I had to  sit under a blanket for a while until it warmed up. I do still need to eat (and then put medications in my carry on) and dress (and then put my makeup and such in the carry on) but I'm essentially ready to go now. I do still want to vacuum a bit, which I can do BECAUSE THE POWER IS BACK ON NOW

Tuesday evening things

 * Got the last stuff finished up on campus. I'm going to try not to think about classes and especially the problems with having to be in three different buildings for them (because of the construction) come January.

* I also got packed save for things like my makeup and toothbrush and medications. I have a list so I won't forget anything. Also have a list of what I need to do (I plan to leave the kitchen tap on a very slow drip just in case we get exceptionally cold weather; the pipes are on a poorly insulated north wall)

* I got more done on my mom's socks. They won't be DONE before I get up there (especially because I need to at least do a little vacuuming here tomorrow before I leave, but they're getting close:

I think I have three more solid-color stripes before I start the heel. I'm trying to make them match as much as possible. I might work on them some tomorrow if I get the cleaning done, and I could work on them a bit on the train. And secretly up at my mom's house. 

* I also gathered up some projects. I did take the Bluey yarn (it's hard to find the right colors and it took me a while, so I don't want to leave it to chance at the Michael's up there) and I also wound off some new sockyarn

I sort of impulse-purchased a bunch of Simply Sock Yarn one day when I was both sad and thinking about "well maybe the tariffs will finally kill off the knitting hobby since much of the yarn is imported and it's already an expensive hobby if you want "special" yarn"

But also, the color name amused me.

Referencing, I guess, the burnt-up tree. (It's a terrible movie in some ways, full of mean humor and jokes that aged poorly, and yet, and yet, when you're not really feeling the hope-peace-joy-love of the Christian celebration of Christmas, it does make you laugh and maybe realize "well, mine isn't so bad after all")

It's actually kind of a pretty colorway, though

and here it is wound off, ready to be knit up into socks:

*but yeah, I am tired. I hope I can rest up over break and not think about what's coming in January..

Not quite done

 Today's main accomplishments were

- writing my syllabi for next semester

- finding the rooms I will be teaching in come spring when we are exiled out of the building (construction)

- doing the accumulated laundry so I can pack late tomorrow (a lot of stuff I dry by hanging it up, so it takes time)

The syllabi went okay but made me realize a couple of other complicating factors for next semester (like: in the tiny lab I'm using, where will people put their backpacks? I guess I open up the disused office where I'm storing stuff and tell them to leave them there)

Finding the rooms started out okay - one was in the chemistry building, there was a sign up indicating you needed to call the chair (with his office number posted) if you needed to get in. I know him a bit from having served on committees; he's a nice man. So he came down and let me in and showed me how the computer/projection set up in the room worked. He also noted that since it was an 8 am class, it would be a good idea for me to request a key because the rooms tend to be locked that early in the day. (So when I did get back to campus, I filled out the form and sent it to him, as he indicated. He must have gotten right on it because I got an e-mail from physical plant later on telling me the key was ready). Granted, they are going to have to share OUR building next year when theirs is being renovated, so there's a reason to be a good host, but....I think also he understands the disruption and unpleasantness and wants to make it as easy for us as he can.

Then I went to another building. It was unlocked, so I thought I could just find it on my own. No, I couldn't. Lots of buildings on campus have idiosyncratic numbering systems, and this one does too.

So I went and found the nearest departmental office, and opened the door. There were two women in there, one was the secretary, another was (I figured out later) a friend of hers. I smiled ingratiatingly and explained: "I'm one of the people who's going to be exiled from Biology come spring, and I was wondering if I could get a little help finding my room...." The secretary started to say "yes, of course" but her friend - being funny - said loudly "no, of course not"

Because I am who I am, I recoiled a bit and prepared to go try to find the room myself. 

And yeah, maybe don't joke like that with people you don't know? I mean, the secretary did show me the room (and leave me to figure out how to use the computer and projector). 

But the "joke" kind of rubbed me the wrong way and affected the rest of my day. I interpret that sort of thing as fundamentally hostile and it's just....weird to me. Maybe it's a dominance thing? Maybe I'm reading too much into it? But it did make me uncomfortable. 

And yes, I know, I'm "too sensitive" and I've gotten worse about that since the pandemic, where I seem to have fewer interactions each day, so a bad one looms larger. 

After that I was just tired, needed to eat, didn't want to go back and finish my syllabi without food. But I also know I had used up all the milk and had to go to a grocery. So I thought - do I go now and get even hungrier and grumpier, or do I go home and try to shift with what few things I have left (that's not in a can that would generate a lot of leftovers). So I went to one of the small local places that does a breakfast all day and had eggs and sausage (and I think something in the sausage disagreed with me slightly) and cinnamon french toast.

And then went back and finished the syllabi. Oh, I have to go back and do one last sweep of the labs that will be closed down come January to be sure I didn't forget anything, and I have to probably post the syllabi on my LMS. 

This afternoon and evening, I did the laundry; the last load is drying now.

Tomorrow I guess I pack (in addition to the other things) and try to grab a little time to knit more on my mom's socks. I may  well not have them finished, but oh well. 

At least we do have the pulpit filled for January, and likely most of February, so I don't have to make time to try to start a sermon.

first of two

 I finished the first of my mom's socks on Wednesday. I've begun the second but it's going to be iffy if I get it done before I leave or if I have to try to secretly finish it up there

the color is "Kingfisher" from West Yorkshire Spinners.

***

My grades are in. Some of the students are unhappy; I had to field e-mails all day. I tell them and tell them, in the intro class, that the time to come in is after the second exam where one's grade is low. But no one believes me, or perhaps they think "I can still bring my grade up," and then the final hits and they earn a D and it's a big problem. 

I've been polite but I especially dislike the ones that add on trying to tell me how to do my job. 

Tomorrow is graduation. Again I feel kind of flattened. I'm going to go (unless it's absolutely pouring, I still can't walk fast and I don't want to get drenched).  

I still have to write three syllabi for next semester and check to be sure that everything I need is out of the lab.

An era's end

 Well, sort of.

This afternoon I carried the last bits of "my" equipment out of the teaching lab. Some of it went into the temporary homes (one, an empty office where my ecology field gear is stored; another, the soils stuff moved either to my research lab, where I will attempt to teach the class (and overflow in another disused research lab). The rest went to a storage building down the hill from us. So I moved the bulk density sampler and the light-banks and some other things I rarely use down there, and transported a big bag of Perlite for a colleague who wants to use it in the future, but not this coming semester.

I'm surprised how sad I feel to see the empty lab - everything down off the walls (all the posters of plant anatomy and prairie types and the bulletin board. And all the equipment gone.

I mean, it's for a good reason - the renovations, which we've been told will start sooner if we have everything out before January (which feels to me like a polite fiction we're being told; construction never starts on time, no matter what). But next semester isn't going to be fun - we're going to be scattered around campus and I probably won't SEE any of my colleagues. it will be almost like 2020 again, except we will see students in person. 

I'm sure part of it is that I'm extremely tired; these last few weeks have been a lot, between all the grading (I was literally involved from 8 am to 6 pm yesterday with giving or grading exams, then had a meeting at church that went until 8 pm), and the minister leaving (and me finding out SURPRISE I am on the search committee! On top of being on two job search committees at work!). And i think the periodic flare-ups of knee pain (transporting a loaded cart down a steepish incline is not good for it) isn't helping; I had to apologize to a colleague yesterday after I snapped at him on Tuesday for something that wasn't his fault, but I was having a bad pain day.

I don't know. I hope this is all worth it. I hope the renovations are on time and are done by May as they've said. I hope things look a lot nicer and newer after them. 

I need to get home and do at least a short workout, and tomorrow I have three (3!) job-candidate interviews (for a university position. We have one packet for a possible ministerial candidate, but we're not ready to start that just yet). Saturday is graduation. 

At least my Monday and Tuesday may be a bit freed up. I have not had time to get to the little gourmet shop to look for a FEW Christmas cards (I am not sending out many this year, just don't have the energy or time) and some stocking stuffer gifts for my mom. Failing that I could probably take the car one day I'm up there and go to the walgreen's near her and find things. 

But yeah, just lots of weird and complicated and sad/nostalgic feelings, especially now as the bottom of the year approaches.