I missed yesterday

 * In a few minutes I have to go back to campus and grade the second exam I gave this week, but I'm taking a short breather after lunch

*I still haven't found the "big" (5 yard) piece of grey I thought I had bought. If I can't locate a box with it in it when I grab boxes today (and tomorrow noon, which might finish up the fabric), I will just go and buy a piece because I want to do that quilt now. 

 

UPDATED: I found first a plain solid "flat" gray in a five-yard piece, then the next bucket yielded a mottled/variegated grey five-yard piece! So I have my pick. (Right now, I think I prefer the mottled look - more like a cloudy sky)

* I'm sort of tired and a little melancholy. A lot of people I care about are hurting, watching even a very limited bit of coverage (or rather: listening to, on the BBC app) the whole funeral process for the queen brings up memories of losing my dad, which is not something I was prepared for. I would like to sit and quilt and listen to it but there's SO much funeral coverage I can't right now. (And no, I don't want to try to find podcasts)

* Meeting last night that was kind of fraught. Can't go into detail but I will say it was less acrimonious than I feared but didn't end as cheerfully as I had hoped. It kind of boils down to one person being rather hardheaded and wanting what they want despite the feelings and inputs of others, and I suspect the person who expressed the greatest hurt over the situation is also dealing with other stuff in their life that may have made them more sensitive.At any rate, it's over for now, and I'm relieved it is. Tonight I don't have to go back out, I can just haul home some boxes and sort fabric and not think about the outside world. 

* One thing I ran across on Twitter that I liked, from the anonymous author of the Plague Poems account, was this:

"When the pandemic began

artists covered the walls 

with bright posters

the images along the sidewalks

assuring us we were in this together 

exhorting us to protect each other 

but that was long ago 

now the walls are bare 

and the only thing 

along the sidewalks

are discarded masks."

 

And yeah. I feel that. I know the pandemic is still here (two students missed the exam yesterday because they each have a roommate out with covid, and they are now waiting to see if they've been affected (they do not live together). And I'm contemplating when to get the bivalent booster - at this point my plan is to risk waiting until Thanksgiving or Christmas break, as I would prefer to be somewhere where I was around another person (my mother) in case I have a bad reaction to it. 

And yes, I still (mostly) mask in public, but I feel very alone in that. I feel very alone in a lot of things these days and I don't like it. (It is one source of my melancholy). 

 * I ran to Pruett's this afternoon. Will make picadillo (well, my modified version of it) for dinner either tonight or tomorrow - all I needed for it was ground beef, I had the seasonings and tomato stuff and the raisins (yes, traditionally it has raisins, and also green olives, which I leave out as I don't care for them) and canned beans and tortillas. 

I also bought some dry split peas with the vague idea of making split pea soup at some point. (Also bought a can of spam - yes, really - to cut up and put in it in place of ham, since spam has a longer shelf life than refrigerated ham). I'll have to consider recipes; most of them call for carrots and celery as flavoring but I'm allergic/sensitive to those so I must leave them out. I can do the onions and garlic and thyme that are typical, but I may need to figure out some other addition for flavor. (Perhaps a bit of white wine, at the end? That might help)

I wish fall would get here. We might be up around 100F a couple days next week and that feels very deeply wrong (though I suppose we will have to get used to it, climate change). I want rain and cooler temperatures and not to get out of breath and sweaty when I do things outside.  

 

* Did a dumb little thing for a gag on Twitter.

 

You know what this is?

 

 It's a Disk Horse, get it? I looked up Twitter's color code to give her the right body color, and she has a Changeling horn because they're kind of into violence and stuff and I think a Disk Horse would be.