Taking a brief break from cleaning my House Of Squalor (It had gotten bad; combination of being too busy at work and maybe a little low-level dysthymia/lack of executive function). But I got booted into cleaning mode when a friend from Claremore messaged me and said "Hey, my husband and I want to go to the Heard Nature Center in McKinney and we could pick you up on our way" and I said "Great, that sounds fun!" and then later on I realized - oh no, they might want to use my bathroom before continuing on or sit in the living room for a minute (and anyway: you must pass through the living room and the little hall in the middle of the house before getting to the bathroom anyway).
And I know, I know, people say "we're not coming to see your house, we're coming to see YOU but also I feel BAD, like a failure at adulthood, when someone comes over and my house is a mess.
And anyway, I really needed to clean it. For me. I haven't scrubbed out the tub in a while. (Small old house with only one bathroom; I don't have a "powder room" I can keep clean for visitors). \
Contemplating getting a pizza tonight if I think my jaw can handle it; I had some minor dental work Wednesday and I'm still sore, partly because they also scanned me for a new anti-tooth-grinding guard and because I have a small jaw, they had a hard time getting a good scan and had to repeat part of it, and that wand is really too big for my mouth.
I suppose I could order it "grandpa style," like that one joke in an old episode of Bob's Burgers. Except that would be gross.
When governor freaking STITT is calling for these dudes to resign, you know it's bad. Citation: I live in Oklahoma.
I am not sure I even claim myself as an Oklahoman any more despite having lived here longer than anywhere else I've lived; have become really disgusted with how the state is run, top to bottom, in the past 10-ish years. (My job is here, I own a house here, or I'd be gone)
Allergies? Do you have any pollen allergies? This has been the worst spring here that I remember for them.
(also I am not your mom but you should probably re test in another day or two; I know several people who got the 'rona but didn't pop a positive result until 3-4 days in to symptoms).
Drink lots of fluids. Eat chicken soup.
I don't know what's on my docket. The end of the semester is hurtling towards me fast but at the same time my allergies are absolutely hellacious but I also need to at least knock back the weeds in my yard with the string trimmer. I know what I would LIKE to do but I suspect I won't get that until early May.
Hahahah.. I tried it. BIG BIG MISTAKE in the first paragraph; the bot must not know MacLeish's poem:
"To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell" are two poems that were written by Andrew Marvell. Although they are different in tone, subject matter, and structure, both poems share some similarities and have a common theme of love.
In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell addresses a woman whom he desires and expresses his love for her. He urges her to seize the moment and to make the most of their time together, as time is fleeting and life is short. He uses various literary devices, including metaphors, imagery, and hyperbole, to convey his message. He also employs a three-part structure, where he first flatters the woman, then expresses his concerns about the passing of time, and finally urges her to give in to her passions.
In contrast, "You, Andrew Marvell" is a self-reflective poem that explores the poet's own thoughts and feelings. In this poem, Marvell talks to himself and questions his own motives and desires. He wonders whether he should pursue fame, wealth, or love and whether his life has any meaning or purpose. He uses rhetorical questions, paradoxes, and metaphors to express his doubts and to seek answers.
Despite their differences, both poems share a common theme of love. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell's love is directed towards a specific woman, whom he desires and wants to possess. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell's love is more abstract and philosophical, as he ponders the nature of love and its role in his life. Both poems also suggest that love is fleeting and that time is the enemy of love. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell urges his lover to seize the moment and to make the most of their time together, as time is running out. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell suggests that love is a fleeting emotion that can be easily lost or forgotten.
Another similarity between the two poems is their use of literary devices. Both poems use metaphors, imagery, and rhetorical questions to convey their messages. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell uses metaphors to compare his lover's beauty to various natural phenomena, such as the sun and the dew. He also uses hyperbole to exaggerate the importance of their love and the urgency of their situation. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell uses paradoxes to express his doubts and to question his own motives. He also uses rhetorical questions to seek answers and to explore the nature of love.
In conclusion, "To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell" are two poems that share a common theme of love, despite their differences in tone, subject matter, and structure. Both poems suggest that love is fleeting and that time is the enemy of love. They also use literary devices, such as metaphors, imagery, and rhetorical questions, to convey their messages. Overall, these two poems demonstrate Marvell's skill as a poet and his ability to explore complex themes with wit, intelligence, and creativity."
Almost better than "To His Coy Mistress" (which we read in, IIRC, junior-year English in high school), I remember "You, Andrew Marvell" by Archibald MacLeish, which we read right after that, and then wrote essays comparing the two. Some of us went to a lot of effort looking up the various references MacLeish makes ("at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange," "now at Kermanshah the gate/ Dark empty and the withered grass") when I guess it was really just marking the movement of the setting sun....
(heh. I wonder what Chat GPT would do with the comparison of the two poems. Probably wouldn't be any worse than my effort in about 1985....).
I get today off (unusual for a "state" school) but I am in working on the promise that if I can finish the next big chunk of lecture stuff, I can take Saturday off.
I have to decide on something "special" to fix for an Easter meal. This is a tradition I used to have - make something more complicated than I normally eat.. I have the added difficulty of currently not having a dishwasher (mine broke back in 2021, and first, supply chain and home-repair issues kept me from getting a new one; currently I don't have the money to and I resist going into credit card debt for something inessential like that). Also have generally been kind of "meh" about cooking lately, I don't know why. Maybe it's the lack of a dishwasher, maybe it's something else.
No going out for a meal is not going to be a thing; I am sure every family in town has snapped up every reservation and no restaurant nicer than McDonald's wants to serve a solo diner on a big family-meal day. And there's nowhere that delivers or sells acceptable semi-pre-made meals in my area.
Holidays like this - at least the secular parts of Easter - are hard when you're a solo adult. You're not a kid, so you don't get an Easter basket or an egg hunt. If you don't have kids, you don't get to do things for them. If you don't have a partner.....well, I think of all the years my dad would buy my mom an orchid corsage for Easter.
I do find that since the pandemic being able to mark "special" days has mattered more to me, while it's also ironically harder to do so (first: not being able to be out doing things and then later supply chain issues and now, finally, some post-pandemic malaise/lack of volition on my part).
I wonder if they're gonna offer citizen training in how to administer it, like CPR training exists. (And also: there may need to be 'good Samaritan laws" for this - many states have them for CPR, on the grounds that sadly, most of the time CPR patients don't make it, and those that do often wind up with broken ribs, and there have been isolated cases of families trying to sue the CPR-giver).
I admit I am not very knowledgeable about the "in the trenches" part of dealing with opioid addiction; I am not sure I have ever known anyone who abused them. But I could see it becoming part of the mandatory training faculty do, how to reverse an OD. (And knowing how to administer would be useful in other settings, of course....I suspect a person would more likely spot someone ODing in the local grocery store than in a college lab....)
Yeah, my parents had cats that made it to 19 and 21, respectively. Once they get over about 15 it's just kind of constant maintenance.
I have a rare weekend when I'm caught up "enough" so I am taking Saturday off. Well, making an Ulta run with part of it because the stuff I ordered before Spring Break - when I didn't have time to go - never came, and Ulta had to refund me because of stupid UPS being stupid.
I don't have kids, but having lost a parents/lived through helping college students dealing with some personal trauma/living through the pandemic/having friends who experienced family violence left me, for a while, really unable to deal with any entertainment that touched on violence. (Even before all that, I had a hard time with shows like, for example "Criminal Minds." I liked the puzzle solving aspect and the team camaraderie, but I could not with innocents being harmed or killed, especially kids or teenagers). At the worst of it (2020, dealing with fresh grief and also the horror of the early days of the pandemic), I could not even read the golden-era mystery novels I used to love and used as an escape in the past.
I've never liked dystopias; I tend to see them more as cautionary tales ("we could become this if we aren't very careful, or even if we're merely unlucky") than some kind of exciting counterfactual.
Right now, I'm reading Elizabeth Gaskell's enormous "Wives and Daughters" - a 19th c. British novel. I had forgotten how much I liked these - slices of life but nothing too terribly bad happens to anyone. Stories about people trying to use the right fork or angle their way to dance with someone they might be a "match" for seems to be more my style.
"They took all the trees/put 'em in a tree museum. And charged all the people/a dollar and a half/just to see 'em"?
though that's arguably more about commercialization/monetization of things ("They took all the newspapers/put 'em on the internet/ but you gotta pay money/ for the ones you wanna get")
I've also heard of something called Disco Fries, which sounds poutine-adjacent. (New Jersey, I think? Or eastern Pennsylvania?). I've never eaten poutine despite arguably having some French-Canadian heritage; just never something I got a chance to try (and am not a big fan of gravy, dare I say?)
Spring break starts so today is a marathon day of trying to get caught up for systematic botany, then running home and throwing clothes in the washer. And then either tonight or tomorrow morning packing, and tomorrow night I board a train to go visit my mom for a couple days.
I probably need to read up and outline the various tribes of the Asteraceae while I am up there, though.
honestly, if we go to year round DST? Adjust work-school times in the winter to match. I don't want to drive to work through several residential areas (NO other way to get to work) where kids are waiting for the bus when it's 2 hours before the sun will be up - when the kids aren't well supervised, some are in dark clothes, and very occasionally one thinks playing "chicken" with a car might be fun
yes I am a bit of a crank about this but I once nearly hit a person (an adult out jogging) driving to work in the dark, they were entirely in a dark tracksuit and were hard to see - even with my headlights on - until I was almost on them.
also folks here love the brighter-than-the-sun aftermarket headlights, which only serve to blind other drivers.
I've already told myself that if we get year round DST I will simply refuse to teach 8 am classes or offer 8 am office hours. It'll make my life harder in other ways but if I hit a kid, even if it was demonstrably not my fault, I'd not be able to live with that.
yeah, that's why even though most years the flu vaccine is an imperfect match for the strains circulating, it's still a good idea to take it. I've had people in the medical field (people whose opinions I respect and seem to know their stuff) say that even if you catch a DIFFERENT strain, you'll be less sick.
I think I've had that happen - had the flu shot in a bad-match year, got something later that season that was slightly worse than a typical cold but nowhere as bad as full blown flu, whereas people I knew without the vaccine were down for two weeks with something similar.
It's like a raincoat - if it's really bucketing down, you'll probably not stay completely dry, but at least you won't be soaked to the skin. Add in an umbrella (booster?) and you'll probably stay even dryer.
Ugh yes - after this week it's back to driving to work in the dead dark middle of the night for some weeks until our solar season catches up with the season imposed upon us.
This weekend is mostly working on systematic botany stuff.
yeah my main feeling on this is "call me when finding out "whodunnit" will bring my cousin back to life, or my family friend, or fix my shaky mental health after the pandemic, or fix a friend's kid's T1D he contracted after getting it"
I mean, I get that humans LOVE having someone to blame, but.....I'd rather see the news reporting yelling about "why aren't we upgrading building ventilation" instead of this.
Some of the LD Amtraks have "real" dining service back. The one I take though, the east leg of the Texas Eagle (FTW-CHI) does not, so it's microwaved airline-style food in plastic throwaway plates. Until recently they were having you eat in your sleeper compartment (if a sleeping car passenger) because of COVID. Recently they went back to the old style of seating but still have the "flex meals" (which are not BAD bad - I've had worse frozen dinners - but are not the same as the cooked-to-order steaks they offered in the before times.)
I am pretty sure the keeping of "flex meals" where they can get away with it is a cost saving move. Mostly it's sleeper passengers eating in the diner and our meals are part of our accommodation charge.
This is my birthday weekend (my birthday actually falls on Monday, and like most adults, I have to work on my birthday, so I am doing something to mark it this weekend). It's supposed to be chilly and rainy but I'm still making the hour's drive to the nearest yarn shop to me, and probably going out to lunch, and possibly a few other places.
I admit I'd be more excited if it was going to be sunny and nice but you can't have everything
that cannot possibly be legal/constitutional. The vaccines are voluntary. If this goes anywhere, some states need to quickly make being "vaccine sanctuary" states a thing indelibly in their constitution before the madness spreads. Man, we're on a headlong path to go back to the 1300s, aren't we?
arguably, in some places, the whiff of "mandates" made it worse: hence the people (allegedly) throwing screaming fits in the Target that they then posted online, for "clout"
("clout" will be the death of us).
I dunno. I wore a mask until early this year, I've mostly stopped. Still wear one at my doctor's office because they ask people to, it makes absolute sense to me to in a medical setting, and I am not an a-hole. But I got REALLY weary of walking into the wal-mart in one, getting the stink-eye and wide berth (I guess they thought I was infectious?) from unmasked folks.
And yes, before anyone asks: the regular 2-shot series, 2 regular boosters, and bivalent booster, and if recommended, will get the annual booster "like the flu shot" that's currently being developed.
I'd still wear one if I were visiting someone at very high risk of bad COVID. I'd still wear one if asked. But I've mostly stopped.
I don't GO congested places so that's not an issue. I don't go to movie theaters and very rarely go to restaurants any more. Mostly go to work, the store, and church - which has less than 50 people any given sunday and a big sanctuary
I will say the whole fight over masks, and all the ugliness I heard people spouting (on both sides, to an extent, but one side more than the other) REALLY has soured me on humanity, I'm at least 75% more misanthropic than I was before 2020. Probably will serve me well when the bird flu pandemic gets going, I can remind myself "people, faugh, who needs them" as I nail my front door shut from the inside.
ThTh10: thank goodness now, with cheap thumbdrives and the cloud we really not worry about that. Back in the day I knew someone who thought he was going to become a famous writer; he kept his drafts on his hard drive but also regularly backed up (twice) to floppies (remember those?), one of which he kept in a different building from his computer, the other which he kept in his safety deposit box.
Most of my "important" files are teaching stuff and I am trusting the campus cloud to hang on to them for me.
(when I do write, the first draft is longhand, and often I do the editing longhand. It's how I think)
I threatened (!) to give up sweets (I really could stand to lose at least 10 pounds) but decided instead I will cut back - so I will still periodically allow myself something (and not just on the "Sundays aren't part of Lent, actually" days). I am too good at all-or-nothing thinking and I know saying "nothing sweet at all other than maybe plain fruit" for the next forty days would set me up to fail.
In the more-progressive-Christian circles I frequent there's a lot of talk of "instead of giving something up, take something else on" and.....to me that feels even more punishing than giving something up would be this year; I'm awfully busy and tired and the thought of another batch of volunteer work or "time in contemplation" or whatever seems like it would be more difficult and potentially mood-cratering for me than even fully giving up sugar would.
(I did take on doing PT for my janky hip that had a bout of bursitis years back, but I started that long before Lent)
You got them. Hopefully it goes for you like it did for my dad - early diagnosis, relatively uncomplicated treatment, a bit over a year later he was declared to be free of it. He got almost 20 more years of life afterward and what ultimately took him was unrelated to his bout of prostate cancer.
yeah, taking a rare weekend totally off. Zoom knitting group later today, but first going to make a run to Target and JoAnn's - been at least six weeks since I've been out of town and I need to get out. My brain needs time away from Systematic Botany and I finally got far enough ahead in prepping lectures and labs I feel okay not working this weekend.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “VIDEO (3m): Closing Scene to A Face in the Crowd”
I remember seeing that in summer 2016 and finding it surprisingly terrifying. (Also: young Walter Matthau. "Would," as the cool kids say)
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Home Stretch”
Taking a brief break from cleaning my House Of Squalor (It had gotten bad; combination of being too busy at work and maybe a little low-level dysthymia/lack of executive function). But I got booted into cleaning mode when a friend from Claremore messaged me and said "Hey, my husband and I want to go to the Heard Nature Center in McKinney and we could pick you up on our way" and I said "Great, that sounds fun!" and then later on I realized - oh no, they might want to use my bathroom before continuing on or sit in the living room for a minute (and anyway: you must pass through the living room and the little hall in the middle of the house before getting to the bathroom anyway).
And I know, I know, people say "we're not coming to see your house, we're coming to see YOU but also I feel BAD, like a failure at adulthood, when someone comes over and my house is a mess.
And anyway, I really needed to clean it. For me. I haven't scrubbed out the tub in a while. (Small old house with only one bathroom; I don't have a "powder room" I can keep clean for visitors). \
Contemplating getting a pizza tonight if I think my jaw can handle it; I had some minor dental work Wednesday and I'm still sore, partly because they also scanned me for a new anti-tooth-grinding guard and because I have a small jaw, they had a hard time getting a good scan and had to repeat part of it, and that wand is really too big for my mouth.
I suppose I could order it "grandpa style," like that one joke in an old episode of Bob's Burgers. Except that would be gross.
On “Something Is Very Wrong In McCurtain County, Oklahoma”
When governor freaking STITT is calling for these dudes to resign, you know it's bad. Citation: I live in Oklahoma.
I am not sure I even claim myself as an Oklahoman any more despite having lived here longer than anywhere else I've lived; have become really disgusted with how the state is run, top to bottom, in the past 10-ish years. (My job is here, I own a house here, or I'd be gone)
On “Weekend Plans Post: Sick. Sick, sick, sick.”
dude, you got spooged on by a tree
(Beavis and Butthead laughter)
"
Allergies? Do you have any pollen allergies? This has been the worst spring here that I remember for them.
(also I am not your mom but you should probably re test in another day or two; I know several people who got the 'rona but didn't pop a positive result until 3-4 days in to symptoms).
Drink lots of fluids. Eat chicken soup.
I don't know what's on my docket. The end of the semester is hurtling towards me fast but at the same time my allergies are absolutely hellacious but I also need to at least knock back the weeds in my yard with the string trimmer. I know what I would LIKE to do but I suspect I won't get that until early May.
On “POETS Day! Andrew Marvell”
Hahahah.. I tried it. BIG BIG MISTAKE in the first paragraph; the bot must not know MacLeish's poem:
"To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell" are two poems that were written by Andrew Marvell. Although they are different in tone, subject matter, and structure, both poems share some similarities and have a common theme of love.
In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell addresses a woman whom he desires and expresses his love for her. He urges her to seize the moment and to make the most of their time together, as time is fleeting and life is short. He uses various literary devices, including metaphors, imagery, and hyperbole, to convey his message. He also employs a three-part structure, where he first flatters the woman, then expresses his concerns about the passing of time, and finally urges her to give in to her passions.
In contrast, "You, Andrew Marvell" is a self-reflective poem that explores the poet's own thoughts and feelings. In this poem, Marvell talks to himself and questions his own motives and desires. He wonders whether he should pursue fame, wealth, or love and whether his life has any meaning or purpose. He uses rhetorical questions, paradoxes, and metaphors to express his doubts and to seek answers.
Despite their differences, both poems share a common theme of love. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell's love is directed towards a specific woman, whom he desires and wants to possess. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell's love is more abstract and philosophical, as he ponders the nature of love and its role in his life. Both poems also suggest that love is fleeting and that time is the enemy of love. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell urges his lover to seize the moment and to make the most of their time together, as time is running out. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell suggests that love is a fleeting emotion that can be easily lost or forgotten.
Another similarity between the two poems is their use of literary devices. Both poems use metaphors, imagery, and rhetorical questions to convey their messages. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell uses metaphors to compare his lover's beauty to various natural phenomena, such as the sun and the dew. He also uses hyperbole to exaggerate the importance of their love and the urgency of their situation. In "You, Andrew Marvell," Marvell uses paradoxes to express his doubts and to question his own motives. He also uses rhetorical questions to seek answers and to explore the nature of love.
In conclusion, "To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell" are two poems that share a common theme of love, despite their differences in tone, subject matter, and structure. Both poems suggest that love is fleeting and that time is the enemy of love. They also use literary devices, such as metaphors, imagery, and rhetorical questions, to convey their messages. Overall, these two poems demonstrate Marvell's skill as a poet and his ability to explore complex themes with wit, intelligence, and creativity."
"
Almost better than "To His Coy Mistress" (which we read in, IIRC, junior-year English in high school), I remember "You, Andrew Marvell" by Archibald MacLeish, which we read right after that, and then wrote essays comparing the two. Some of us went to a lot of effort looking up the various references MacLeish makes ("at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange," "now at Kermanshah the gate/ Dark empty and the withered grass") when I guess it was really just marking the movement of the setting sun....
(heh. I wonder what Chat GPT would do with the comparison of the two poems. Probably wouldn't be any worse than my effort in about 1985....).
On “Weekend Plans Post: Preparation for Batchin’ It”
I get today off (unusual for a "state" school) but I am in working on the promise that if I can finish the next big chunk of lecture stuff, I can take Saturday off.
I have to decide on something "special" to fix for an Easter meal. This is a tradition I used to have - make something more complicated than I normally eat.. I have the added difficulty of currently not having a dishwasher (mine broke back in 2021, and first, supply chain and home-repair issues kept me from getting a new one; currently I don't have the money to and I resist going into credit card debt for something inessential like that). Also have generally been kind of "meh" about cooking lately, I don't know why. Maybe it's the lack of a dishwasher, maybe it's something else.
No going out for a meal is not going to be a thing; I am sure every family in town has snapped up every reservation and no restaurant nicer than McDonald's wants to serve a solo diner on a big family-meal day. And there's nowhere that delivers or sells acceptable semi-pre-made meals in my area.
Holidays like this - at least the secular parts of Easter - are hard when you're a solo adult. You're not a kid, so you don't get an Easter basket or an egg hunt. If you don't have kids, you don't get to do things for them. If you don't have a partner.....well, I think of all the years my dad would buy my mom an orchid corsage for Easter.
I do find that since the pandemic being able to mark "special" days has mattered more to me, while it's also ironically harder to do so (first: not being able to be out doing things and then later supply chain issues and now, finally, some post-pandemic malaise/lack of volition on my part).
On “Life Through The Nose: FDA Approves Nasal Spray Narcan”
I wonder if they're gonna offer citizen training in how to administer it, like CPR training exists. (And also: there may need to be 'good Samaritan laws" for this - many states have them for CPR, on the grounds that sadly, most of the time CPR patients don't make it, and those that do often wind up with broken ribs, and there have been isolated cases of families trying to sue the CPR-giver).
I admit I am not very knowledgeable about the "in the trenches" part of dealing with opioid addiction; I am not sure I have ever known anyone who abused them. But I could see it becoming part of the mandatory training faculty do, how to reverse an OD. (And knowing how to administer would be useful in other settings, of course....I suspect a person would more likely spot someone ODing in the local grocery store than in a college lab....)
On “Weekend Plans Post: Toothless”
Yeah, my parents had cats that made it to 19 and 21, respectively. Once they get over about 15 it's just kind of constant maintenance.
I have a rare weekend when I'm caught up "enough" so I am taking Saturday off. Well, making an Ulta run with part of it because the stuff I ordered before Spring Break - when I didn't have time to go - never came, and Ulta had to refund me because of stupid UPS being stupid.
On “Parenthood Control, As In Self Control, Dystopian And Otherwise”
I don't have kids, but having lost a parents/lived through helping college students dealing with some personal trauma/living through the pandemic/having friends who experienced family violence left me, for a while, really unable to deal with any entertainment that touched on violence. (Even before all that, I had a hard time with shows like, for example "Criminal Minds." I liked the puzzle solving aspect and the team camaraderie, but I could not with innocents being harmed or killed, especially kids or teenagers). At the worst of it (2020, dealing with fresh grief and also the horror of the early days of the pandemic), I could not even read the golden-era mystery novels I used to love and used as an escape in the past.
I've never liked dystopias; I tend to see them more as cautionary tales ("we could become this if we aren't very careful, or even if we're merely unlucky") than some kind of exciting counterfactual.
Right now, I'm reading Elizabeth Gaskell's enormous "Wives and Daughters" - a 19th c. British novel. I had forgotten how much I liked these - slices of life but nothing too terribly bad happens to anyone. Stories about people trying to use the right fork or angle their way to dance with someone they might be a "match" for seems to be more my style.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Poutine”
"They took all the trees/put 'em in a tree museum. And charged all the people/a dollar and a half/just to see 'em"?
though that's arguably more about commercialization/monetization of things ("They took all the newspapers/put 'em on the internet/ but you gotta pay money/ for the ones you wanna get")
I've also heard of something called Disco Fries, which sounds poutine-adjacent. (New Jersey, I think? Or eastern Pennsylvania?). I've never eaten poutine despite arguably having some French-Canadian heritage; just never something I got a chance to try (and am not a big fan of gravy, dare I say?)
On “Weekend Plans Post: Pasketti”
Spring break starts so today is a marathon day of trying to get caught up for systematic botany, then running home and throwing clothes in the washer. And then either tonight or tomorrow morning packing, and tomorrow night I board a train to go visit my mom for a couple days.
I probably need to read up and outline the various tribes of the Asteraceae while I am up there, though.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Last Proper Weekend Until Autumn”
honestly, if we go to year round DST? Adjust work-school times in the winter to match. I don't want to drive to work through several residential areas (NO other way to get to work) where kids are waiting for the bus when it's 2 hours before the sun will be up - when the kids aren't well supervised, some are in dark clothes, and very occasionally one thinks playing "chicken" with a car might be fun
yes I am a bit of a crank about this but I once nearly hit a person (an adult out jogging) driving to work in the dark, they were entirely in a dark tracksuit and were hard to see - even with my headlights on - until I was almost on them.
also folks here love the brighter-than-the-sun aftermarket headlights, which only serve to blind other drivers.
I've already told myself that if we get year round DST I will simply refuse to teach 8 am classes or offer 8 am office hours. It'll make my life harder in other ways but if I hit a kid, even if it was demonstrably not my fault, I'd not be able to live with that.
On “Mini-Throughput: Why “Natural Immunity” Isn’t All That Hot”
yeah, that's why even though most years the flu vaccine is an imperfect match for the strains circulating, it's still a good idea to take it. I've had people in the medical field (people whose opinions I respect and seem to know their stuff) say that even if you catch a DIFFERENT strain, you'll be less sick.
I think I've had that happen - had the flu shot in a bad-match year, got something later that season that was slightly worse than a typical cold but nowhere as bad as full blown flu, whereas people I knew without the vaccine were down for two weeks with something similar.
It's like a raincoat - if it's really bucketing down, you'll probably not stay completely dry, but at least you won't be soaked to the skin. Add in an umbrella (booster?) and you'll probably stay even dryer.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Last Proper Weekend Until Autumn”
Ugh yes - after this week it's back to driving to work in the dead dark middle of the night for some weeks until our solar season catches up with the season imposed upon us.
This weekend is mostly working on systematic botany stuff.
On “The COVID Origins Debate Heats Back Up”
yeah my main feeling on this is "call me when finding out "whodunnit" will bring my cousin back to life, or my family friend, or fix my shaky mental health after the pandemic, or fix a friend's kid's T1D he contracted after getting it"
I mean, I get that humans LOVE having someone to blame, but.....I'd rather see the news reporting yelling about "why aren't we upgrading building ventilation" instead of this.
On “Dinner Time on a Train”
Some of the LD Amtraks have "real" dining service back. The one I take though, the east leg of the Texas Eagle (FTW-CHI) does not, so it's microwaved airline-style food in plastic throwaway plates. Until recently they were having you eat in your sleeper compartment (if a sleeping car passenger) because of COVID. Recently they went back to the old style of seating but still have the "flex meals" (which are not BAD bad - I've had worse frozen dinners - but are not the same as the cooked-to-order steaks they offered in the before times.)
I am pretty sure the keeping of "flex meals" where they can get away with it is a cost saving move. Mostly it's sleeper passengers eating in the diner and our meals are part of our accommodation charge.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Whiplash”
This is my birthday weekend (my birthday actually falls on Monday, and like most adults, I have to work on my birthday, so I am doing something to mark it this weekend). It's supposed to be chilly and rainy but I'm still making the hour's drive to the nearest yarn shop to me, and probably going out to lunch, and possibly a few other places.
I admit I'd be more excited if it was going to be sunny and nice but you can't have everything
On “Thursday Throughput: Masked Astronomer Edition”
that cannot possibly be legal/constitutional. The vaccines are voluntary. If this goes anywhere, some states need to quickly make being "vaccine sanctuary" states a thing indelibly in their constitution before the madness spreads. Man, we're on a headlong path to go back to the 1300s, aren't we?
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arguably, in some places, the whiff of "mandates" made it worse: hence the people (allegedly) throwing screaming fits in the Target that they then posted online, for "clout"
("clout" will be the death of us).
I dunno. I wore a mask until early this year, I've mostly stopped. Still wear one at my doctor's office because they ask people to, it makes absolute sense to me to in a medical setting, and I am not an a-hole. But I got REALLY weary of walking into the wal-mart in one, getting the stink-eye and wide berth (I guess they thought I was infectious?) from unmasked folks.
And yes, before anyone asks: the regular 2-shot series, 2 regular boosters, and bivalent booster, and if recommended, will get the annual booster "like the flu shot" that's currently being developed.
I'd still wear one if I were visiting someone at very high risk of bad COVID. I'd still wear one if asked. But I've mostly stopped.
I don't GO congested places so that's not an issue. I don't go to movie theaters and very rarely go to restaurants any more. Mostly go to work, the store, and church - which has less than 50 people any given sunday and a big sanctuary
I will say the whole fight over masks, and all the ugliness I heard people spouting (on both sides, to an extent, but one side more than the other) REALLY has soured me on humanity, I'm at least 75% more misanthropic than I was before 2020. Probably will serve me well when the bird flu pandemic gets going, I can remind myself "people, faugh, who needs them" as I nail my front door shut from the inside.
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ThTh10: thank goodness now, with cheap thumbdrives and the cloud we really not worry about that. Back in the day I knew someone who thought he was going to become a famous writer; he kept his drafts on his hard drive but also regularly backed up (twice) to floppies (remember those?), one of which he kept in a different building from his computer, the other which he kept in his safety deposit box.
Most of my "important" files are teaching stuff and I am trusting the campus cloud to hang on to them for me.
(when I do write, the first draft is longhand, and often I do the editing longhand. It's how I think)
On “Lent!”
I threatened (!) to give up sweets (I really could stand to lose at least 10 pounds) but decided instead I will cut back - so I will still periodically allow myself something (and not just on the "Sundays aren't part of Lent, actually" days). I am too good at all-or-nothing thinking and I know saying "nothing sweet at all other than maybe plain fruit" for the next forty days would set me up to fail.
In the more-progressive-Christian circles I frequent there's a lot of talk of "instead of giving something up, take something else on" and.....to me that feels even more punishing than giving something up would be this year; I'm awfully busy and tired and the thought of another batch of volunteer work or "time in contemplation" or whatever seems like it would be more difficult and potentially mood-cratering for me than even fully giving up sugar would.
(I did take on doing PT for my janky hip that had a bout of bursitis years back, but I started that long before Lent)
On “A Prayer Request”
You got them. Hopefully it goes for you like it did for my dad - early diagnosis, relatively uncomplicated treatment, a bit over a year later he was declared to be free of it. He got almost 20 more years of life afterward and what ultimately took him was unrelated to his bout of prostate cancer.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Nothing Is Happening”
yeah, taking a rare weekend totally off. Zoom knitting group later today, but first going to make a run to Target and JoAnn's - been at least six weeks since I've been out of town and I need to get out. My brain needs time away from Systematic Botany and I finally got far enough ahead in prepping lectures and labs I feel okay not working this weekend.
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