Saturday afternoon things

*Today was graduation (Or, as they really prefer to call it: Commencement). Long. Very long. Even though the speaker this year (the chief of the Choctaw Nation) was a better speaker than most AND he up-front said he was limiting his talk to 8 minutes (which *every* graduation speaker should do; IMHO, graduation is NOT about the speaker, it is about the graduates). But our B-school has expanded in recent years, especially the MBA program, and so it's us, Business, and the graduate school and OH MAN was it long.

Also, I will note in passing: the family and friends (mostly close-in-age people to the graduate, based on the voices I heard) of B-school people are a *lot* louder than Arts and Sciences. I think in A and S we had *one* person with a cowbell (which I have no problem with; they are an excellent cheering noisemaker because they don't hurt your ears) but with the B-School there were several instances of air horns (which I definitely do NOT like, and I bet the people sitting close by like it even less than I do down on the floor). There were also a couple instances of people cheering for so long that the next graduate's name was drowned out, and that feels unfair to me.

I will say I wonder if there's a sociology Master's Thesis (or at least Senior Project) in the differences in cheering patterns for different disciplines and maybe at different universities.

* I always feel at loose ends after this. Part of it is it's a big chunk right in the productive middle of the day, part of it is being in a place with Too Many People, part of it is that it is an ending of sorts. Next week I will have no set schedule other than "Try to get the manuscript written" and many people will be gone and I'll be largely alone for most of the summer.

I also have a headache, which doesn't help. It's chilly and damp here again (I put the heat on, I don't care that it's May). I drank a large cup of caffeinated tea and took a Tylenol with lunch (pretty much the only things I can do for headaches any more with my iffy stomach) and hopefully it will get better.

* Because hopefully I can Finish a Thing today - I either want to finish the Northern Lights shawl (I am either within 12 or 24 rows of finishing; I'm going to do the one more repeat and see how much yarn I have left; if it's 30 grams or more I will do the one additional repeat) or I could sew together the modified-nine-patch quilt top.

I do also have to finish my day's piano practice.

* If I do Finish a Thing (or maybe Two Things), then I can start something new. I don't know what yet but I want to start something new.

* I trimmed the front hedges back a lot more again yesterday (They grew a lot from the time I did them before; I guess they were still dormant when I trimmed them earlier). It lets more light in the house but also my porch is more visible now which is good and bad. I suspect it's easier for packages to be stolen when they can be seen from the street.

* Today was a better mail day than some. I was talking with people on Twitter earlier about ordering things, and I confessed that I often mail-order stuff I don't strictly need because otherwise, the mail is often kind of depressing. Most days, the mail I get consists of:

- bills
- charity solicitations
- ads, ranging from blah (some local cheap furniture place) to unsettling (the local funeral home pushing pre-planning; I presume they have a database of  "people who are getting old" that they mail to)

And, as someone else bemoaned: few people write letters or postcards any more, so fun "personal" mail is not so much a thing. (Heck, most days I don't even get personal e-mail, at least not at my personal address - I get lots of "personal" e-mail at my work address but it's people asking me to do stuff)

So anyway. I talked about Butterscotch earlier. Because of Smart Post I wasn't expecting her until Monday but she came today (Fortunately, I was home to get the mail...both so she was less-likely to be stolen, but another piece of mail came postage due and I had to pay the guy a couple bucks).


Anyway. Butterscotch is here. A couple photos to show the hugaciousness of Build-a-Bear animals, if you were unfamiliar:

There is something sort of nice about having a childhood imaginary friend made flesh (sort of). Butterscotch doesn't look EXACTLY like the horse I imagined, but she's close enough.

I still might try to make her a "stable blanket" with a piece of quilted fabric. Maybe put blanket binding around the outside edges.