Where the day went

Before I started work, I fed the cats, did yoga, ate breakfast, watered and fertilized the tomatoes, watered the African violets, brushed the cats’ teeth.

Checked e-mail and answered a couple of messages. Declined an “opportunity” that would interfere with time I want to use either to do research or to prep my grad class, though technically I’m “free” at that time.

Wrote 567 words.

Commented on all the undergrads’ discussion board posts. Assigned points to both classes’ posts. Discovered that I have loaded to Blackboard all but one assignment for each class (I thought I was missing more than that for one class, so this made me happy). Made notes toward the two assignments I still have to write up in detail.

Attended a committee meeting online. Volunteered for a subcommittee.

When the meeting ended early, I used the “found time” to swing by the grocery store (half an hour) and move some boxes around in the garage, then started unpacking one box of books (another half hour). ILL’d a book I need, only to have the request cancelled because the book is already checked out of one of the libraries that has it; another is a non-circulating library; the third claims to have it but in fact hasn’t ordered it yet. Thppppbtt.

Dead language group meeting, online.

Talked to Sir John while completing the unpacking of that box of books. Sorted out a stack of books to give away. I’m pretty sure that box of books never got unpacked in the last house, so it was easy to distinguish between the books I was glad to see again and those that made me wonder where and why I got them in the first place.

Checked in online with my dissertating students.

Ate dinner. Went for a walk. Unpacked a new batch of masks from Etsy that arrived in today’s mail.

While watching the Vuelta, answered more e-mail and started reviewing an article I’m teaching tomorrow.

Quick Sunday round-up

I’m not going to say “five minutes” because even five minutes to write turns into 15 to post and fill in categories. And it won’t be ten things I did today because it’s not yet noon here.

Gardening update: the groundhog broke through the newly patched fence by Thursday (when I discovered the damage). I’ve piled heavy pavers in front of the hole, and bought some new metal fence posts that I plan to use to hold the chicken wire in place, and also just to block access. Honorine Joubert is coming into bud. Most of the late-starting volunteer tomato plants have fruit on them, so maybe I will have tomatoes for Halloween.

Reading: though it should be all for teaching and research, this is me we’re talking about, so I’ve read Katherine Heiny’s novels and short story collection because Moira’s posts made her sound like fun. I liked the short stories best. Standard Deviation seemed very familiar, never quite so familiar that I said “Oh, that book, I don’t need to re-read it,” but always with the sense that I knew [whatever event] was going to happen once it did. I’m not sure if Moira did such a good job reporting on it that I expected everything, or if I really did read it a few years ago and forget. I’m also not sure if I was slightly bored because of that sense of familiarity, or because nothing much happens, or because I’m tired of books about privileged New Yorkers. I definitely found Early Morning Riser dull, in part because the setting is so very familiar (small midwestern town). It had some funny lines, but I thought we were in Anne Tyler territory (not literally, since AT writes about Baltimore and its environs; in terms of how random events and long-standing loyalties shape lives), and that Tyler does it better. It made me wonder if Moira and her British commenters like Heiny so much because for them the familiar aspects of her work are slightly exotic, the way I only read British chick lit because I prefer the tone and settings to American chick lit, which usually feels a little cloying and/or claustrophobic to me.

Also reading: Elly Griffiths’ series about Edgar Stephens. I do not like it nearly as well as the Ruth Galloway series. I thought the villain of the first book was completely unbelievable. But at least it’s Elly Griffiths, so they’re readable, and as picky as I am about my fun reading, sometimes readable is good enough.

Researching: I’ve managed a couple thousand words on my book in the past couple of weeks. Yay!

Teaching: I more-or-less finished the most troublesome syllabus a couple of hours before that class started. I still have to write a bunch of assignments. Why is it just as hard to turn an online class into in-person as the other way around? I thought it would be easier going this direction.

Washing and drying: I am enjoying having the new washer and dryer, which were delivered while I was in Familyland, but the washer does have a tendency to twist clothes into ropes. However, both machines have the settings I want to have, and are not so fancy that they want to communicate with the smart phone I don’t have, or decide for themselves how to wash or dry the clothes. I want to be the one who bosses the machines, not the other way around!

Exercising: not enough. It is much too hot out most of the time to go for walks, and I’m not getting up early enough to go out at sunrise when it’s bearable, because we’re staying up late . . .

Watching: the Vuelta à España.

Some things I did today

The redoubtable Ganching generally manages to do ten things of a Sunday, but I doubt I’ll be able to equal her. Let’s see:

1. Bought a dress on e-bay.
2. Cooked brunch when Sir John got up.
3. Patched that hole in the fence of the vegetable patch, which required
4. digging below the level of the current fence,
5. cutting a piece of chicken wire,
6. attaching the chicken wire to the original fence, but lower and further along the shed,
7. and filling in the trench afterward.
8. Gave myself a haircut (and sent a picture of it to a friend).
9. Went for a walk.
10. Refrained from doing any job-related work except for sending an e-mail in response to one that will help me finish that pesky syllabus.

OK, if you count all the steps involved in the patching plus the parenthetical picture-taking, that’s eleven! And the digging was hard work, so I definitely want to count it separately.

Six on Saturday: Vandalism in the Veg Patch

A few days ago, three large tomatoes were ripening on the freebie plant. Then there were two, and I wondered if I’d hallucinated the third. Then there were none, and I found this:

I am not amused. I suspect the groundhog that has been hanging around, but I’m sure rabbits will find the hole soon enough. I need to go close the barn door, so to speak, but first I have to finish a syllabus for a class that starts in just a few days.

Further evidence of the damage:

The beast has been nipping off stems of many tomato plants. I have a lot of late-starting volunteers from the compost patch, which may fruit for Halloween if we’re lucky, so I wish s/he’d stick to them.

A view of the sweet peas, the two remaining plants; I started a dozen back in late April or May, seven sprouted and were moved to the fencing around the veg patch, and I think these are the only two that remain:

Let us move on from this scene. I’m glad I have two pots of tomatoes on the deck. Well, at the moment they’re on the path, because I need to paint the deck, but we keep having thunderstorms predicted so I don’t paint, and I’m going to have to re-prep when I get there, but anyway, tomatoes. The Romas aren’t doing so well, as some bug keeps laying eggs in the tips of the tomatoes, so I had to throw away the first half-dozen to ripen. Fingers crossed that the current batch may be okay:

Looking up, here’s a late-summer view of the magnolia, last seen in bloom:

We’re up to six now, yes? Here’s the autumn-blooming clematis, in bud, twining around the grape vine and the deck railing:

Six on Saturday is hosted by The Propagator, who has lovely bright colo(u)rs this week!

Stay tuned for posts on The Green Knight and my research spreadsheets.

Another five-minute post

I’m home again, which means exchanging a view of blue salt water for a sea of green grass and green trees. This should not be anything to complain about, but I do miss salt water here in the middle of the country. If classes move online again, I may just go to my brother’s and teach from there (this does not seem fair to Sir John, so I might not be able to pull it off).

I absolutely must work on syllabuses and class plans. I feel very very disinclined to do this, although in response to a query from a colleague I looked at a syllabus & course site from last spring and experienced warm feelings toward those students, which helps a bit. I wish I could be sure we’d be in the classroom for the whole semester! It’s partly the uncertainty that is off-putting: I want to plan the course once, not work out a whole lot of contingency plans.

I have always worked at home a great deal. When I was a student, I found it difficult to concentrate in the library (other people, so many books), and the shared TA office was used mainly for office hours, and sometimes for computer work, but we had to schedule time on the computer. Later I got my own computer. In my final year of grad school, I was on fellowship and could work at home every day if I wanted to, but I usually went to campus at least to swim and/or spend time in the library, because I got cabin fever spending all day every day in my studio apartment. Once I had a job, I was delighted to have an office of my own. I still did research at home, mostly, but loved having an office in which to do class prep. Over the years, I wound up doing more and more “real work” at home on non-campus days, because having a long commute meant that campus days filled up with teaching, meetings, library trips, all the things that required a physical presence on campus. But after last year, I’m really tired of living in the office, and want to go back to campus, so that working at home in my study feels, again, like a privilege rather than a requirement.

Eight minutes. Publishing now.

Six from my sister-in-law’s garden

I’m not at home this weekend, so you get photos from a garden I would love to see more often.

Fuchsias

Lilies and sedum

more lilies

more fuchsias

still more fuchsias

Feverfew and something whose name I can’t recall though I have some at home

Six on Saturday is hosted by the Propagator.