8/31: water and Trollope

Bookends to my day:

A morning stop at the pier on the way to work.

A little time spent with Trollope and writing glosses in the evening.

8/30: a conversation

...with a student I taught when she was a first-semester freshman.  She's a junior now, and it was great to catch up with her.  She was wonderful to teach and she's done wonderful things since then.

8/29: a little time

...to tidy my office at school (something I really needed to do).

8/28: compline

The first compline service of the semester; I'm glad I took the drive into town to hear it.  The "apple of your eye" part makes the translator in me smile every time.

8/27: dutch baby

I'd never heard of it, but Chris saw a photo of it online and decided we should make it.  So we did, and it was good.

8/26: portfolio packet

The information packet for the senior's research portfolios can be challenging to put together, but I managed to do it today (which is a little earlier than in past years).

8/25: Martial

We started to talk about how Martial's poems work in the upper-level Latin class today.

8/24: frog tracks

...on the misted window in the morning.

8/23: teaching latin

I'm teaching only Latin this semester, all three levels which we offer.  The beginning and advanced classes met today for the first time, and it was fun to get back into the groove.

8/22: beginning

...to listen to a new audiobook:  Zola's Thérèse Raquin read by Kate Winslet.

8/21: water, two ways

Afternoon at the creek.  Early evening on the lake for the second night in a row.  And this was the sunset view from my kayak:

8/20: on the lake

I haven't been kayaking much this summer:  I was out-of-town more than usual, or it was too hot, or it was too rainy, or I was too achy.  This evening, though, I went out on the water for a bit.  The lake felt swollen with the rain, but the paddling was smooth and the air was kind.

8/19: finishing (some things)

Of course I thought my summer would be more capacious than it was, and some projects/ambitions didn't see their way to fruition over the past months.  But some did.  Tonight I finished one and got myself in the zone to finish another tomorrow.  And it's also a good thing that I'm being relatively kind to myself about not finishing others.

8/18: tierkinder

One of the postcards I received today had been mailed with a stamp from the German postal service's baby animal series.  The stamp pictures a pair of ducklings and it really makes me smile.

8/17: new and old

The two poets we asked to join Heron Tree as new editors both said yes in less than 24 hours.

At school today I spent some time talking with an old student who is now working for the development office on the floor above me.

8/16: forging ahead

...despite awkwardness and anxiety.

8/15: summer rain

...seen through the window.

8/14: getting over nervousness

...about whether or not the cookies are done when I take them out of the oven.

...about a new call-for-submissions that I posted this evening for Heron Tree.

8/13: conversation

...with Chris at a late lunch in town.  He finished Paradise Reclaimed this morning, and I really enjoyed our talk about it.

8/12: reading time

I finished Halldor Laxness' Paradise Reclaimed on the flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, and I read more than half of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven while waiting for a very (very!) delayed departure from Dallas to Little Rock.

8/11: sightings

...of dolphins, a sea lion, and pelicans--in Malibu.

8/10: sharing

...impressions of art and of the museum itself with Chris at the Getty Center.

8/9: agnes martin

We came to Los Angeles to see the Agnes Martin exhibit at LACMA, and now the mission is accomplished.  It was amazing to see her works in person.

8/8: the beverly laurel

We're staying at the same sweet hotel, with the same cool diner attached, that my parents stayed at when they visited us in Los Angeles in the 90s.

8/7: cool and rainy

...which is unusual for August in Arkansas.

8/6: a very good sandwich

...with tofu, at Flyway Brewing in Little Rock.  (And their beer was nice too.)

8/5: night light

Chris made me a new tilt lamp.  It's a little amber light suspended in a jar (the button battery is attached to the lid).  When you turn the jar over, the light goes on.  And shines like a firefly.

8/4: sunset on the water

It had been awhile since I've been kayaking at sunset--I've been out of town, or it's been too hot, or my body's been too achy.  But tonight I went out.

8/3: finishing

...Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset.  At 1100+ pages, it was a substantial undertaking to read it (I can't even imagine the project of writing it).  And for me the feat was a long time in the making:  one of my neighborhood friends growing up was named after the title character, and I remember trying to read it when I was younger, but it was beyond me.  Chris decided to read it this summer and urged me to do the same.  I'm not sure I loved the novel, but I'm glad I read it, I loved talking about it with Chris over the past few weeks, and I'm relieved to have returned to a scene of prior (or at least temporary) defeat and turned it into victory.

8/2: trio, plus one

Trollope, poetry, and spending time with Chris.

Oh, and a very unexpected email from someone I haven't heard from in years and years.  It turns out that his cousin is going to be an advisee of mine this year at school.  What a small world.

8/1: not overbaked

I tend to overcook cookies: I worry that they won't be done enough, and so they become a little too well done. But today I made cookies--one of my favorites from childhood--and didn't overbake them.