Here I am waiting for Big A to give me a ride to the g/f's halloween party tonight.
(I'm supposed to be a butterfly... a social butterfly. Ha.)
Still busy celebrating Big A's birthday weekend here. Also: UU, OWL, gardening, A hang with JL to celebrate her new place. But also a weekend where I seem to have blown off three parties (a secular muddle of early halloween and karva chauth) due to a combination of work/malaise.
When I complained about the foggy day to EM as I was trying to beg off going on a walk with her, she said we should pretend we were "visiting Scotland or some other place where the dreary weather has been romanticized." My friends are loving, forgiving and so, so smart.
A long-awaited consult with the kind and compassionate people at the Gender Clinic at the U of M's children's hospital. (It's officially Mott Children's Hospital, but dude was pretty racist even for his time.)
Nu's happy with the plan of action and we're happy Nu's happy.
<<<<Nu and I loved our Covid-Screening stickers too...
Baker Woods with L this morning--we'd hoped for fall color and we got this bright green vista. It's the middle of October. Last year looked like this.
I sent it to family chat with the caption "fall colors" and they hearted it without appreciating my snark.
That's when I realized my people don't leave the house very often...
Birthday weekend trip to Hot Topic (a.k.a. acc. to Nu as "my natural habitat") and the Halloween store.
So apparently it's National Daughters' Day, and my FB feed is full of lovely people posting about their lovely daughters and I'm loving it esp. as I no longer have daughters this year. (The kids have made Huckleberry an "honorary bro" so I now have four boy-kids.)
Nu has had a cold for a couple of days and spiked a fever last night, so we headed for the drive-through Covid-test this morning. They couldn't find Nu's health records and I was quietly panicking because I thought it was because I'd decided to leave the sex column blank, but it turned out that my tired brain had given them the wrong year of birth (I gave them At's!!). I can't wait to see the AMA's recommendation that sex be removed from birth certificates universally accepted.
Note 1: I like that his new roommate is a librarian; the roommate likes that I'm a gender studies prof.
Note 2: It seems like At still loves using Mark Fisher as an intellectual tagline.
A long walk-talk with KB yesterday; I begin to feel I can handle the world again.
Early morning chat with my sister; figuring out all the things on our list for this year--many of them impossible without a passport (which I don't yet have as everything's so backed up). But she makes plans seem possible anyway.
Midday yoga in the forest with Nu and L on either side of me; a sort of peace washes over me.
Garden party at our place this evening; the comfort of sharing food with CF, SB, SD, and AH and others.
Talking to strangers on an FB Golden Doodle page about Scout's difficulty walking; lots of new things to obsess over and bring up with doc/E.R. visit in 48 hours.
Baby cousin K and her partner J arrive tomorrow; I get to spoil them.
And I love that this picture was taken by my baby sis who dutifully took tons of pics because I couldn't be there.
I was going to post pictures of our party for JG's and MB's retirement, but I didn't ask everyone's permission. So instead, here's a screen grab of me gazing up adoringly at KB that I found hilarious. I've always said my decision to come here was in part because of KB--she wasn't on my search committee, but she had been tasked to have lunch with the candidate (me). I feel like I'm in an old timey teen movie when I'm with KB--like an extra in a John Hughes film on the verge of a manageable adventure.
Anyway the party went great! I got all the things done thanks to Nu who was an amazing sous chef and decorator and Big A who DJ-ed and moved furniture and took photos and At who helped with the fancy candle and got singed but still went on to do bug control.
JG and MB loved everything and I'm so glad I got to do this for them. And thanks to them, I kind of feel ready to have more intimate gatherings again.
I hope.
On an early morning walk with L, we found these lotuses blooming out of the sludge and rain water. No one seemed to have refilled the lotus pond at the horticultural gardens, but here they were anyway.
At the end of the day, I found myself in the unprecedented and awkward position of having been suggested/nominated for three different service positions.
I've tried not to dwell on the news (abortion bans, voting suppressions, Afghanistan, rising rates of Covid) this week in favor of focussing on being the best teacher and parent I can be.
No updates on how that's going yet.
Almost all caught up on admin and to-dos for a bunch of side gigs (CASA, Jaggery, NWSA, and SAWNET) and feeling some relief from that.
Onward.
I think I've taken on too much this year. At the end of this first week back, I'm deeply depleted and exhausted.
Pic: Late evening walk with Big A. The river was peaceful and lovely, but when one walks with Big A and his Apple watch, there's no tarrying.
First day of classes today... I panicked hard yesterday, despite having taught in person all of last year. But the usual combination of over prepping and the endorphin-adrenalin rush of being in front of a class kicked in and all was well. Finished up work with a small reception at the president's house for being on a search committee that met all summer long.
When I got home, Big A was napping ahead of a work-night, At was off canvassing, Nu was in the basement knuckle-deep in a paint project for a class. So I grabbed my Culver's dinner from L's fundraiser for Peacequest, queued up some Felicity on ye olde laptop, and ate with Scout and Huck for company.
A bit of an anticlimactic end to the day, TBH.
