quick catch-up

While taking a short research break.

* Purlewe, while at home for lunch I tried Alex's long wig on Skye....while their heads are the same size, I think it would only work if you removed or really cut short (like: buzz cut) the rooted hair because the colors don't match, and also, the rim of the wig cap shows (it's the same color as the hair).

POSSIBLY same-color hair (so: if the African-American dolls have black hair rather than extremely dark brown they could swap with the Asian doll) would work, but other than that....maybe not.

* I don't know how long media mail takes these days, Jay, but the books went out this afternoon. I had an old Amazon box the right size, so I got to "reuse" (I was talking about "reduce, reuse, recycle" as part of the lectures dealing with RCRA and landfills in Policy and Law this week)

(And I admit I tend to be bad about 'reduce' in that I buy all kinds of dumb junk I don't really NEED, but at least I am good about things like keeping clothes until they are worn out rather than pitching them and buying all new....)

* Had a long-ish conversation with my Best Frolleague Forever about various things - I went to talk to him about a student who wanted to do directed readings with me for a whopping larger number of credits than I normally permit, and the student said my BFF had told her to talk to me, so....I floated my idea of how to have a bigger project for her so as to not make the course a TOTAL gut, and he was fine with it. We also talked about some coming-in-the-next-five-years retirements and how we (as the remaining core of the conservation program) would need to plan out what specialties we wanted to replace the retirees with and also that we'd need to agitate hard for full-time tenure track positions because getting qualified adjuncts is hard, and it's also monumentally unfair to expect that level of work and effort from someone and then pay them the $1500 a class that an adjunct here makes.

And then he looked at me. Understand, this is someone who has seen me at my WORST this fall - sitting in a room sobbing, speaking very sharply to someone on the phone who wanted me to take on yet another task, muttering imprecations under my breath and saying "I can't do this. I can't do this any more" and he asked me: so, how are things? Do you maybe want to consider compassionate leave? I know this fall was rough and there is such a thing....

And I kind of tossed my head and said "Nah, I think I'll be OK."

And for the first time since shortly before I left for Illinois that Saturday in July, I actually believed it.

And yes, I know: not a linear process, and part of this is I'm staring down a weekend where I don't HAVE to do anything I don't WANT to do. But for the first time in a long time I have felt pretty much equal to what I need to do in the upcoming weeks, like I can handle things.

"So, you're coming out the other end of it then, I guess."

Okay, so maybe that's a little awkward but academia tends to attract awkward people and I'm taking that as some kind of fistbump of affirmation from him (he is not a hugger, decidedly not, even if there weren't all kinds of Federal Titles that would make hugging a co-worker, especially one of the opposite sex, something to worry about)

But yeah. I do think I'll be OK. I'll have days when I'm not, and I'm still not enthused about Thanksgiving week up coming (the memorial service, and also All The People being in town), but I think I'm equal to it.


****

Edited to add: am home, and yikes. We had very high winds last night (huge cold front came in) and I kept hearing sounds like branches coming down and I kept checking my drive (I have a very strong light on the garage and I can see it out the guest room window) and didn't see any pecan limbs down, so I thought, "huh, maybe I'm hearing things."

Then I got home today (I left this morning in the dark) and saw into a corner of my back yard and...said some not very ladylike words:



That's a large chunk of the old elm. I guess having the trees trimmed back severely last fall has triggered a wave of self-pruning, and the wind just helped bring stuff down.





And yeah, I guess what I told my colleague is correct: I am OK. Yes, I cursed a bit (mostly out of sheer surprise) when I saw this, but....I didn't cry or rage. I looked at it and said "Huh, that's a heck of a thing" and then "I'll have to eventually get someone in to remove it" (It's not blocking anything, so it's not urgent. I might ask my friend Dessie if her daughter needs more firewood; if someone could come and cut it up with a chainsaw they could haul off some big chunks of elm). Alternatively, I could hire a tree guy again; there's also a sugarberry in the backyard I want gone and while it's expensive to have that done, I guess that's what I have a savings account for, so I could get the cheaper tree guy out (the sugarberry will not be hard to remove) and have him haul off the elm while he's at it. (But I think I will ask Dessie first; if free firewood is enough of an attraction for free labor... I could wait on having the sugarberry removed).

I will also say: a couple feet farther to the north? And it would have taken out the power lines and the cable to the house, so I am incredibly grateful it came down the way it did; it didn't hit anything except a tiny corner of the garage roof.

***

I also had to put the heat on for the first time today. It was 66 F in the house when I got home and I have enough trouble with neck and shoulder pain, and getting a little too cold makes it much worse, so I am going to make it a couple degrees warmer in here (set the thermostat at 69) and it will be fine.

Also this will get rid of the "burnt dust" smell for the first of the fall....

***
And I got an Amazon Update! They are going to ship my doll (the one I have provisionally named Theophania or maybe Theofanie) EARLIER; I might have her by Tuesday. Whoop! I'm excited for this; this was the doll of the line I wanted the very most and it wasn't available early on.