8/31: being reminded
...by financial talk on the radio that I needed to pay my credit card bills online tonight! Just in time to meet tomorrow's due-date.
8/29: using
...a box of white cake mix that's been in our pantry for quite some time. It became the base for lemon teaberry cookies this afternoon. I haven't been able to visit Pennsylvania for the past two summers, so I've missed getting teaberry custard at The Meadows. I'm cheered by the little reminder of the taste through the cookies, and I'm glad to have finally used the cake mix.
8/28: leaving the powercord
...for my work laptop at school. An accident, but maybe a happy accident. I was able to do a little work this morning before the battery gave out, but then I was forced to take a break from it for the rest of the day, and that was good. It reminded me of the importance of trying to keep Saturdays as school-work free as possible.
8/27: receiving
...a copy of Remy Charlip's Arm in Arm from a friend who was clearing out her bookshelves and thought I might like it. I love it!
8/25: using
...a connect-the-dots activity as an analogy for literary interpretation and dramatic presentation. The dots are the text or script; the straight lines connecting some of them are the literary interpretation; embellishments of those lines are the layers that are added through staging and performance. My co-teacher and I may have liked the exercise more than the students did, but they had some fun adding to one another's pieces, and it was a good way to spend part of our first full class together.
8/24: a student mentioning
...that she read The Goldfinch this summer, a book I had mentioned to her two years ago. It was nice that she remembered our conversation.
8/23: forgetting
...to do one part of an in-class activity at the time I had planned it, so moving it to the end of the whole process. And that turned out to be better than if I had done it according to my original plan.
8/22: cooking
...Ethiopian food: mesir wat, collard greens, and injera. Plus a little fresh salad and peanut tea.
8/20: learning to play
...scopa, an Italian card game. Chris had an old family photo of some men on Ustica playing it, so we decided we had to order a deck and give it a try.
8/19: remembering
...how much I love "The Seven Ravens." I have to hold the girl-hero close to my heart.
8/18: working
...with a first-year student to get a modern dance class added to her schedule. It was so nice to see her get excited about it as I described the professor's approach to her.
8/17: today's gathering
...of good things includes:
- Adding lavender to my coffee. In the past, I've bought coffee with lavender already added, but the company I bought it from stopped making it. So I ordered some dried lavender, ground it myself, and added a bit to the ground coffee before brewing.
- Writing to a friend.
- Figuring out a scheduling conundrum for one of my upcoming courses.
- Sorting through a pile of T-shirts and deciding which ones to keep.
8/15: three things
With dinner: strawberry lemonade.
For dessert: orange flavored meringue with strawberry purée and whipped cream.
After dinner: time on the lake, with the water, wind, and sky.
8/14: open again
The public walking track closed for two weeks for annual cleaning, and today it re-opened. Hurray! I was the only person on the track for the 50 minutes I was there, and only 3 people were on the basketball courts below. It was a nice--and reassuringly safe--way to go back.
8/13: thinking about
...Marsyas and the body, in response to an email from a former professor of mine.
8/12: getting through
...a challenging day of online advising appointments. I was grateful that I had two computers going: one to talk with an advisee via Teams and the other to use the registration sites and software to record their scheduling choices as we talked.
8/10: successfully dealing
...with Microsoft Teams. It's the online platform that my school's been using during COVID, but since I was on sabbatical last academic year, my experience with it was limited. Today I had to run the information session for my first-year advisees via Teams, and it went just fine. Mostly it was pretty intuitive and not that different from poking one's way around other online delivery systems, but Chris helped me do a trial run yesterday, and that made me feel extra secure.
8/9: social distancing
...at a meeting today meant that I had a little space-pod or margin around me without seeming like I was being unsociable. I liked that.
8/8: hemming
...pants for back-to-school. Chris did a pair of his, and I did a pair of mine. We have more to go, but it was nice to get started.
8/6: writing
...a letter vouching for a former student who is really wonderful. And then receiving a note from her thanking me for seeing her.
8/3: pane e panelle
...kind of. When Chris visited Sicily a few years ago, he came back with a fondness for chickpea fritters in a sandwich, something that's sold on the streets in Palermo. We've tried making panelle in earnest, but didn't have great luck with it, and we're wary of doing that much deep-frying in any case. But I made a bunch of chickpea pancakes that we stacked between slices of LaBrea Bakery bread, and that's a satisfying (and healthier) substitute. I just have to remember to squeeze lemon juice on the chickpea pancakes next time.
8/2: comforts
Donuts at 5 am. A hotel room when the plumbing at home goes awry. A phone call with a friend two days in a row.
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