* Found out a bit more about my relative with memory issues. The doctors are pretty sure (from symptoms; I think a definitive diagnosis only comes with an autopsy) it's Alzheimer's.
Which sucks.
That said: they have a reasonably-healthy spouse, and a married child nearby, and apparently an estranged child is coming back and trying to reconcile or at least share in the caretaking.
* Today was a very long day of pre-semester meetings. The best thing was one of my long-term colleagues and I were able to tell our newest colleague (who came in fall 2020) the Deep Lore of the department from before she came:
like the time a teaching assistant thought he'd save us money by washing the plastic disposable pipetter tips and drying them in the drying oven, filling the building with smoke and necessitating an evacuation and calling the fire department
and the time that a patio had to be jackhammered up (DURING CLASS TIME) like a month after it poured because the wrong concrete mix was used and it was starting to slump
and the time a brick wall in the animal use and care facility.....just collapsed (luckily no one was using the facility at the time)
and best of all, the time a construction guy left his truck parked, in gear, no parking brake, on a hillside, and it rolled downhill into one of the experimental ponds and his only concern was "my deer rifle is in the back seat!" and he retrieved that and then bounced, and we had to arrange for truck removal from the pond using a winch.
* A moth I saw the other day, I don't know what species but it is a dead leaf mimic:
ETA: It might be a walnut sphinx moth, Amorpha juglandis. That would make sense; the caterpillars feed on walnuts and hickories and my pecan tree (a hickory - Carya illinoiensis) is right there, and it's known to occur in eastern Oklahoma.
* And I went out to my field site yesterday to check on the litter bags. Good thing I did because in the forested area, it seems an armadillo may have thought it a good place to look for grubs:
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