Still cold in April

So what the heck happened to the rest of last week, and weekend? (Zombie dragon) Because now it’s Tuesday already.

Thursday afternoon I went to a retirement party for one of the technology guys at the main UW-Library. We were in library school at the same time, and he is a good bit younger than me, but has his 30 years in, so getting out. It was a nice party, at the Kollege Klub, a student-y bar that’s right across from the library loading dock, so was kind of a hangout for some library staff. You stick to the floor as soon as you walk in, just like always – and like  the Plaza.

After, I went to meet Mark at the UW Varsity Band concert – Leckrone’s last stand. He flew 3 times – in, on Camp Randall Arch at the beginning, with a jet pack for the start of the second half, and on a trapeze during the first encore.

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Friday we had an elaborate plan to get to Anna’s soccer game in Deforest to watch as much as we could and still it make it back into town for the symphony. I had a meeting out at the Wisconsin Library Association office, which is much closer to Deforest than our house, so I made arrangements to walk to the downtown public library (with my big bag of books, since the meeting was the literary awards committee), catch a ride with my co-chair of the committee, and then Mark was going to pick me up out there, and we’d head to soccer. But the game cancelled, so Mark had to drive out and get me, in traffic at 4:00 on a Friday – an hour of his life he’ll never get back, as he said. The WLA office being much closer to Deforest than our house, as I said. Anyways, OK no big deal, I was home in time to heat up the U.S. Senate Navy Bean Soup I’d made Wednesday, and bake a batch of “pumpkin” muffins, using pureed sweet potatoes that I’d also baked on Wednesday. Mark and I went off to the symphony, leaving Anna to hang out & relax after the long week of soccer practices.

Saturday morning I judged National History Day websites – that was kind of fun, except one of the other judges on my team of three was guilty of the “that’s not really a question” style of asking questions, the kind where they ramble on for 1-3 minutes and then try to tack a question mark onto the end. This mostly confused the 7th & 8th graders we were interviewing. I’d be interested to see which WI kids went on to Maryland for the finals in June.

I was home by 1:00 and I wanted to go to Hilldale to pick up my new coat that had been delivered to LL Bean – this was like my third try to replace my green down, and I kept this one, although it still doesn’t have a 2-way zipper. Mark & Anna came too, and we did minimum grocery shopping, Froot Loops & chips from Sentry, and fresh fruit & a bunch of scallions from Whole Foods, because I was planning on doing the majority of the food shopping at the co-op Sunday. I was also planning fried rice for dinner: cooked a pot of rice in the morning before I left for the judging, then fried it up with the scallions, and strips of egg, and crumbled and fried tofu with a bit of peanut sauce, and the last of the first of those two jars of kimchi I made last summer, and frozen peas tossed in at the end.

Mark and I went to the 2019 Arbuthnot lecture – Debbie Reese, a librarian who’s been working on issues of how people of color are depicted in children’s books. Her talk was titled, “An Indigenous Critique of Whiteness in Children’s Literature”. Looks like you can watch the recording. Usually when confronted with these issues I feel like I’m being told I’m part of the problem, because I’m white and middle class, and then I don’t know what I’m supposed to do aside from feeling bad, but Reese was really good at making it sound like we can all work on this together.

Sunday we slept in, and for breakfast, had blueberry pancakes and the bacon Mark brought back from the market, and some of the fruit we got at Whole Foods. We went for a little walk before breakfast, and then after, I went grocery shopping, and boy, grocery shopping on Sunday sure proves my theory that old people meet in grocery stores – we’re not on the scene any more, so we don’t see each other in clubs, but grocery stores, yep.

I managed to get some work done, then walked to the library. 16,000 steps on Sunday, far better than today’s (Tuesday’s) measly 5,900. I saw some buds opening on the way back, and the neighbors have Easter decorations up.

For pre-Game of Thrones dinner, we had these meatballs I’d been wanting to make from Cook’s Illustrated, they’re pork with an almond and parsley sauce, really a tapa – but I think I was supposed to grind the almonds finer in the food processor, because the sauce was a little too crunchy. I made mashed potatoes to go with. I also made chocolate meringue cookies from Milk Street Kitchen, the food mag and test kitchen Christopher Kimball started when he and Cook’s Illustrated parted ways. I’m starting to like the Milk Street recipes a bit better than Cook’s Illustrated, but the cookies were about as successful as the meatballs – really chocolatey, but they were supposed to be crispy, and they’re chewy. I think I’ll stash them in the freezer for some kind of future layered dessert; chocolate trifle, icebox pie, with custard and berries, something like that…..

Monday I worked at home. I made a batch of granola in the morning, then went to campus for a meeting and a lecture, and came home and made rhubarb muffins. We ate them with leftover bean soup for dinner. I only got pics in terrible indoor light, at 8:30 PM. While I was making them, though, I was thinking, “This is one of my best recipes. It works just like it’s supposed to.”

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And I like everyone else watched in horror as Notre Dame burned. Yes, it’s cause du jour, and yes, it will be restored, and yes, there are hundreds of other horrible things happening, but this destruction of a centuries old building that’s touched so many people’s lives just adds to the general malaise of the times. I think. Maybe we’re all paying attention because it’s a bad thing we’re all pretty sure we can fix, unlike most of the other bad things happening concurrently.

The muffins were good on Monday, but even better for desk breakfast on Tuesday, one each: rhubarb & “pumpkin“.