News and stuff

An e-mail from our (outgoing - he is replaced today by the new guy, and he retires effective tomorrow) interim president: we are "Intending" to go back to face-to-face in the fall.

Summer will be online; in fact, they ask us not to come in to campus except for emergencies until June 30.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand: if it's safe, if the R0 is small enough and if we can do something like test-and-trace on campus, it would be so nice to teach "normally" again - to not have to fight with online systems and figure out how in the heck to get some level of test security, and to actually SEE people and have the dozens of tiny interactions that you don't have when you are doing Zoom or e-mail interaction.

On the other hand: we have lots and lots of commuter students from lots of different locations, including areas with worse community spread than here has. I would be leery of bringing students in and stuffing them in dorms* and everything else. I have had a number of students with autoimmune disorders. I have had students who lived with a parent going through chemo. It would be terrible for someone vulnerable to catch the disease because campus started up too soon.

(*I suppose some "distancing" measure will be figured out. Giving everyone a single room would be the simplest way but I don't know if we have dorm capacity for everyone in the dorm to have a single room. And there is still the issue of shared bathrooms and shared cafeteria facilities)

I am also a little nervous about labs; it is hard to distance in labs, even if the lab is a small group - people have to do group data collection, I have to get close to people to help them. I suppose I could make a couple sets of masks (once I can get bias tape again) that match my dresses and just wear masks in classes where I can't distance? I don't know. I don't know how the uni would feel about the "optics" of that though maybe this is one of those cases where I say [forget] their feelings - if it makes me marginally safer, I do it. (I know, I know: masks protect other people more than they protect you. But whatever.)

I will say I'm kind of glad now that my former chair - though I hated to lose her as chair - is now our VPAA. She is a microbiologist and I would *hope* if it looked dodgy about re-opening in person she'd put the brakes on it and have us at least start out online. (I am leery because some people who know epidemiology are talking about a second, worse, peak of infection in the fall, and I don't care if there are "promising antivirals," that still won't save some people that "not getting infected at all" would save)

I also think it would be LESS disruptive for us to just start out online than to start out face-to-face and suddenly have to pull a "whoops" and go BACK to online, maybe also after some people get infected. But no one asked me...

****

I did take some time yesterday afternoon and plant the hard-won plants from the Lowe's, and also put up the two hanging baskets I bought. (I am contemplating driving by the Tractor Supply once they reopen and see if they have anything different - stores are supposed to be able to re-open, at least partially, tomorrow, and TSC is probably regarded as "essential"). I would really like a hanging basket with RED but they didn't have any. (I still have a second shepherd's crook). Failing that, I could take the two dead baskets from last year - I do have another pack of nasturtium seeds and one of marigolds, and I think both would do okay in a hanging basket. Or maybe I just do that later this afternoon and figure I'm being frugal.

But I did get the garden cleared out a bit more, and I found that one of my pineapple sage from last year survived under the onslaught of the viney things:



I was glad to see it. It's one of my favorite plants and I suspect I don't have a prayer of getting any more of it this year (I doubt it's a good idea to run down to the garden center in Sherman that normally has it, even if they are open*).

(*Hm. then again, if they had an "order online, drive through and we'll put it in your car for you" option I would 100% do that. I will have to check later on....I could also maybe see if I could batch that with a trip to pick up stuff at Kroger's; there is some stuff  they sell that I like that I cannot get locally. Or maybe I just go on a weekday and brave going in, masked up....if I picked a day that wasn't right after a payday it might be OK)

I also planted the lavenders I bought



(And marjoram. And not shown: a couple of thyme plants)

That little frog, I've had it for YEARS - maybe as long as I've been in this house - but it always makes me smile. I moved it closer to the new plants.



The big ferny plants are fennels that just seed in year after year. I don't eat them - for all I know, it's another carrot-family thing I have a food intolerance to - but they are pretty plants and sometimes the black swallowtails will lay their eggs on them and there are caterpillars.

I also got and planted three Cherokee Purple tomato plants, and a couple of hybrid ones in the Big Boy lineage. I figured, they were there for sale, and even if it's maybe a *little* late, I might still get some tomatoes this summer.

I also found that the snapdragons I had in the front garden either overwintered, or came back from seed:





***

It's funny how the "we might be back in person this fall" has flipped me a little from "uuuuuugggggggghhhh this is never going to end and I don't know if I can outlast this" to "wait....maybe this will end at some point" and while I admit I'm not wild about the idea of going back out to teach (and I def. will not be doing much in-person shopping until next year) because of the possibility of a second spike...it is weirdly a reminder that this is not, actually, forever.

and also, this week, my Imperfect Foods box had no "sorry we're out of that thing" message - so maybe they've got stuff sorted a bit more after earlier freakouts (I am getting some "sliced beef" that I presume will work for fajitas - I have limes and tortillas - and also some smoked salmon and I am HOPING the rye bread I requested in my wal-mart order is available when I go pick it up tomorrow). So maybe though food may be a bit of a challenge brand-or-variety wise, maybe we won't actually starve after all? I hope.

And my finals are ready to go, and they will all be auto-graded, which means that the only grading I have to do next week is student papers (which is enough). and then after that....I am going to take a few days and just not think about work. I need to clean my house and maybe I feel up to it now. And I want to do more yardwork and like I said, if Twin Oaks would do a "you order online, you drive down here, we'll put it in your car" I could get a bunch more flowers and herbs and make my garden even prettier....or I could get caught up on quilt projects. I don't know.

Or start reading the couple books I got on probability, when I realized this fall I never had a good course in it and really need to learn more...