Another week done

 This was a long one

* Had a dental appointment today. Was SUPPOSED to get scanned for a new nightguard, but NOPE - small cavity on a back lower molar that needs to be taken care of (first appointment that fit with my schedule is about six weeks out, but the dentist said it wouldn't get bigger in that time). Apparently even a small filling changes the shape of your teeth enough that a mouthguard should be made AFTER dental work.

Not wild about the idea of a filling but at least it's in the LOWER jaw, and it's not a crown prep.

But yeah, I was low level anxious about the appointment; I dislike going to the dentist

* But getting there and back again was a nightmare. It's probably about a mile and a half from my office as the crow flies, but because they installed an interstate some time in the 1970s, as my car drives has to be more roundabout (there are exactly two east-west arteries in town that cross the interstate - one on an overpass, one through an underpass). Unfortunately, the closest one to my office is the one that's had construction for....like 2 years now? The company keeps missing deadlines but the city keeps on keeping them and I don't know, at this point, maybe firing them would take longer with having to hire someone new? 

Anyway, the overpass part is okay, EXCEPT for some absolutely asinine reason, the stop lights have been switched over to "constant blink" instead of normal stoplight. Which you're supposed to treat as a four-way stop, I get it - but too many other people do not. I pulled up, and waited carefully for my turn, and was pulling through when out of my peripheral vision I saw a car turning towards the lane I was in from the cross street. THEY DIDN'T STOP AND LOOK. THEY DIDN'T SEE ME. I slammed on the brakes to avoid being sideswiped, they missed me by about a foot, and went on their way. I rarely hit the horn but I was scared and angry and leaned on it a bit there.

So I wasn't happy when I got to the dentist. My blood pressure was quite high when they took it, much higher than the "normal even for a non hypertensive person" one I got at home the night before. 

Then, leaving - someone almost backed into me in the lot, and going back to my office (I had a lot to do even though by then it was 4 pm) someone on the little residential street I had to turn on came down the MIDDLE of the street and I had to stop and wait for them to get out (and they waved cheerfully to me, oh yes, you're very welcome dude, for making it impossible for me to pull in even though I had the right of way) and then as I got close to my building, someone ELSE was doing the "drive down the middle of the street" thing, and I had to stop until they saw me and got over.

These are normal residential streets; there was no one parked on street; it was just someone who was The Most Important Person in the Whole Wide World that afternoon.

* Anyway. I went back and finished putting together the systematic botany lab for next week (and dangit, we have NO herbarim sheets of Aconitum or Actaea so I can't include those with the lab. Not native to the state, but Actaea is sometimes planted horticulturally and is also one of the major poisonous plants people might encounter (poisonous to eat; you hear of kids getting really sick because the berries look appealing, I guess?) and I like to cover some of the big horticultural ones, especially ones that might pose a threat.

One thing I would like to do if I have time and can find the species I would need, is make some herbarium sheets of the missing things for next time (Because based on the applicant pool we have, there WILL be next times of me teaching this class; they don't seem to make plant systematists any more. I'm not REALLY one but I can pretend to be)

* I also graded the first set of exams for that class. Tomorrow I need to grade the proposals for ecology and probably work some more on the next group (I think it's Dilleniidae, but I'm almost done there) and probably quickly assess the new applications that came in. 

* I'm telling myself if I work ahead I can take the 25th off - the Saturday before my birthday. Tentative plan is to go to the yarn shop (depending on weather and if they're able to be open). Alternative plan, I guess, is to go antiquing? I do have a coupon from JoAnn's for my birthday and usually Ulta offers some kind of freebee for birthdays. 

I dunno. I'd say I wish I were less busy and had more time at home, but when I wished that in early 2020 I got it in a way I didn't want it....