Week's end.
Not long after my excellent friend got this hydrangea into the ground, some deer ate all its blooms, which must be deer delicacies. I think that she will be glad to know that two giant blossom clusters have emerged in the past few weeks.
Missing pictures.
Tonight, when the Monster and I stepped out into the rainy night for our final (brief) walk of the day, we almost landed on a toad that was sitting, very very still, on the sidewalk just off the front porch. My Clevelander student was with us, and she and I spotted the toad at the same moment--and were both glad that the dog was distracted by something in the entirely opposite direction.
After the dog and I returned to the house, I got out the camera and went back out to take the toad's picture. I got two good (though overly flash-bright) shots. Yet when I looked at the pictures I'd transferred to the computer, those two shots were gone (and, since I'd already reformatted the memory card, irretrievably so). Which means that tonight you're looking at the dog once more, doing his level best both to be patient with me and to play unbearably cute just before bedtime.
Two pieces of goodness, one from each end of the culture spectrum:
The show Glee gets better every week.
(Told you they were from both ends of the spectrum.)
Days go by.
I find myself at the midpoint of yet another week, wondering how it is that things seem to be speeding past at quite this pace, and how it is that the Cabinet continues to go so neglected from day to day. I have some theories about this, and I'm feeling my way through them until I have a chance to play them out in words. For now, two of the things I saw on my way from officehouse to vehicle this evening. (I have probably not even mentioned to you that I am now in my officehouse for something that almost resembles a workday, most days--in around 9:45, home anywhere between 5:45 and 7. It is somewhat startling and has more to do with the large, furry beastie who's currently panting at my feet, hoping that I will drop him some cheesebread [which I won't, because it's all gone, but he won't believe me] than with almost anything else. But I have probably also not mentioned that I'm driving in every day, which has as much to do with the sheer amount of stuff I'm lugging back and forth as with anything else.)
(Clearly there are things to say and to observe.)
Flattened.
I have tried to explain to him that he's not the only one left feeling this way by the work I'm doing. Grading puts me on the floor, too. (If he would just help, perhaps I could get done more swiftly, though my father's theory of dog help--which is that dog help is worse than no help, since at least when the dog's not trying to help, s/he's not getting in one's way--suggests otherwise.)
A day in the life.
Today was that day when I got up at 7:15 and started working (grading papers first), then graded more papers, finally stopping after four so that I could go and teach a class, then started writing conferences twenty minutes after class ended, did four conferences, made some photocopies, taught another class, helped officiate at a meeting of an Important Group that was electing new members, had two more writing conferences, dashed home to feed and walk the dog, dashed back for one more conference, had four visitors to evening office hours (which I'd scheduled to make up for the ones I couldn't hold because I was grading papers in the morning), and finally arrived home for good at about 10:30, when I was able to clear up some Things that Needed to Be Done and then get ready to sleep. You know. That day, with the grading of five papers, holding of seven conferences, teaching of two classes, helping-run of (only) one meeting, advising of four students. And though I am exhausted here at the end, I also know that only the tiniest fraction of that time was not well spent, which is its own blessing. And the dog is happy that I'm finally home and in one place for the night.