Some Thursday things

 Random item time:

* It was a long and somewhat distressing week. Not solely because of the plumbing and the opossum - actually, that ended well (the plumbing fix was expensive but not as bad as I feared, and the opossum was safely rehomed). But there was a somewhat acrimonious meeting on campus, and a very long (but not acrimonious, just lots of things to do) Board Meeting at church. So I'm tired.

* Also I graded an exam and....it wasn't great. And I don't know if it's that our first and second year students have just had their learning process so interrupted by the pandemic that they're really struggling, or that I've lost my ability to teach, or what. I wound up generously curving it because I don't know what else to do. I even did a review session, though it wasn't *great* because it was while the guy was working on the plumbing and I had to do it over Zoom.

* I just think the theme for 2020 and 2021 is "doing our best under really bad circumstances, but it's actually not good enough" and I don't know how to fix it. What DO you do when your best isn't good enough?

* I'm almost done with "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" and if you at all like SF/F (or even aren't particularly a fan but don't actively hate it - I'm not a big fantasy-novel fan but I enjoyed this one) I recommend it. I'll write something more about it later because Dex, in a long speech, articulated something I have been feeling lately but I don't really know how to get past it (And at least thus far, Dex hasn't either; they just recognize it's an issue and an upsetting thing. Maybe by the end of the novel, though I'm within pages of it, or maybe in the next book? There's at least one more in the series coming out eventually and I DEFINITELY plan to get it and read it - and I will probably keep my copy of this because I bet I want to re-read it some time. 

* On a happier note, I got my Christmas tree assembled, and the lights on. And since I had the step stool out to get the highest lights on, I put the angel my mom crocheted for me in December 2019 on the top

I'm going to do the ornaments either tomorrow afternoon, or if I don't get home early enough, on Saturday. 

It is early, but - this time next week I should be on a northbound train for Illinois and Thanksgiving, which just seems super weird to me. (Last year I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas here, and even though there's apparently a new surge starting, I'm trying not to worry - my mom has been boostered, I'm at two doses of vaccine*, and I'm going to be careful - I have a compartment and unless they are insistent about eating in the diner I'm going to request meals in my compartment and of course mask when I'm out of the compartment)

(*The current "eligibility" here seems to be "over 65 or if you have a clear risk factor" and I'm not sure that my asthma and hypertension - both very well controlled with medication and lifestyle - rise to the level of "clear risk factor" without me lying a bit and playing them up, and I'm enough of a hidebound rule-follower not to go in and Karen a bit at the pharmacist to try to get a booster. So I'll wait a bit more and hope everything is okay. My big fear is "long COVID" and that does seem highly unlikely in a vaccinated person even if they get a breakthrough case. And I am generally crowd-phobic enough that I'm unlikely to have a lot of exposures)

I *think* last year I waited until Thanksgiving break to put the tree up, which is more "normal" but in years like this, when I can be traveling - well, the second week of November is really the ideal time, I have the week before Thanksgiving and then the two and a half or so weeks after to enjoy the tree before I leave for Christmas. And yes, even though it's a fair amount of work, it's important to me to do it. 

It still doesn't FEEL like right before Thanksgiving though. It's still warm-ish here (though supposed to get colder this weekend), and this week was so busy I didn't have much time to think about anything but work or meetings or opossums. (This weekend, though - I pushed today to do what I needed to for next week and I can take the weekend off, though I will also need to plan ahead for packing, since I'll have to leave not too long after class on Thursday)

* Still working on the walleye, this turned out to be a bigger project than I realized.

* Also, this article was served up to me by Pocket: "Who is Jellycat really for?" and I have to admit I said NOT JUST PARENTS as I read it - basically it's an article about parents "adopting" a stuffed animal (they feature the Jellycat brand, which has become very popular and has LOTS of different critters) and how some people find it soothes nighttime anxiety. And you know? I've known that for literal years. And yes, during the pandemic I found myself even more often grabbing one of the stuffed animals and sleeping with it scrunched up against my chest. It helps, in a weird way. And I acquired a number more of them, ranging from a Squishmallow styled Chewbacca to a large, custom made, pink weighted unicorn, from an Etsy artist who sells them as a "calming" thing for people with anxiety. 

And I have some Jellycat critters. My two favorites are these:

I bought Dexter back last August using money I earned assisting (online) with a survey about writing across the curriculum. I had seen him on some other collector blog and wanted one for myself, and when I got the Amazon giftcard for doing the help with the research, I decided to buy him. The card was enough that I could buy the "big" Dexter (there's a small one; there might even be one larger than this but this one is a good size, he is almost the size of a small cat).

And this is Alice.

Alice is an axolotl but she also has big "Red Fraggle" energy with the puffs of fur there (they're supposed to be like the persistent neotenous gills of an axolotl). I saw her on yet another collector blog (I think it was the "They Shaped Like a Friend" tumblr) and I WANTED her.

I wound up having to order her direct from the main Jellycat place (in the UK) and wait for her to come (If I remember rightly, I ordered her this summer). And she came - in a big plastic mailer and INSIDE the mailer was a nice cloth Jellycat gift bag (which I kept and use as a knitting project bag) and I'm happy to have her. She's also a good size to hug. 

I kept the original names for both of these. Dexter definitely seemed to fit him, and I tried a bunch of names for Alice but none of them worked, so Alice she remains.