I guess this has just been a crazy week. We had tornadoes and straight line winds on Monday night, power outages on campus with no email or online courseware or main wisc.edu website, even, on Wednesday, and even though we seemed to survive the storm OK here, on Friday morning after a night of what seemed to be NOT as heavy rain, Al’s old room in the basement was seriously wet. And when I tried to fold the futon in there back into a couch, instead of a bed, to get it out of the way of water, turns out it’s got a broken slat. $300 spent on that thing, last October …. and Mark says the place where we bought it is either going, or already, out of business.
Hmm, they’ve got a 50% off going out of business sale on right now …
But it’s all part of that slipping feeling. I’m forgetting, missing, losing it. I made it through my first big event of the summer, and so far I am keeping up with my class of 35 in internships – so far. But the librarian’s national conference is next week, and there’s still the new students’ Bootcamp in August, and two courses to get ready for fall.
I just called the futon place, and sent them a bunch of photos of the damaged frame. They’re super nice and said it was OK if I couldn’t find the receipt – but it still bugs me that I can’t find the receipt. John’s been complaining that there’s something wrong with either the tires or the alert that says the tire pressure is low on the Outback – and the tires are pretty new, too – from last summer – but can I find that receipt? Whaddya think?
I suppose I shouldn’t feel sooo bad – I mean that slipping feeling has certainly inspired songs. Two I can think of right away:
Lowell George, Easy to slip, covered by jam bands from Bob Weir solo to Phish.
Or Paul Simon – Slip sliding away
It makes me feel better if I can at least remember what I cooked and ate for the week – if I can remember that, maybe I’m not slipping so bad –
So, on Monday, I had an online class, just the sort of go over the syllabus Q&A, from 6:00 – 7:00, and then we had leftovers + greens. Mac & cheese, the kind with whole wheat noodles and cauliflower, although this batch somehow wasn’t as good as the last time I made it, and some black eyed peas with ham, frozen since School Woods last event, new years’ brunch, that I had thawed out and served with rice and hunks of fried ham, some night the previous week that I can’t remember. Leftover leftovers. And escarole sauteed with bacon & croutons – new.
Tuesday it was kind of hot, and I couldn’t figure put what to cook, and everyone was sleepy because of being up so late trying to decide whether to stay in the basement, and for me, checcking my towel dams for leaks. Toni had a friend over, so, using teenagers in the house as a handy excuse, we ordered pizza and I made a salad and fruit salad. The fruit salad had the one lone apple left in the fridge with a little lemon squeezed on, and nectarines, strawberries, bananas, and special treat – fresh figs. Mark commented on what a good fruit salad it was.
Wednesday was the day that email and websites were out all over campus. I left at about 2:00. We were having an online Q&A for incoming distance students, using Adobe Connect, which is not on a UW server, so working, and the library school’s website, because it’s also not on a UW DoIT server was also still working – I just couldn’t edit it because the CMS is on a DoIT server – so it was likely that the students would all show up. I took my laptop home, and because it was rainy, I took the bus – and Mark has driven me to work, because it was so rainy, so no walks. I was meeting Heike for coffee at Starbucks, so I figured I’d walk there, but ended up driving after taking Toni out to Arbor Hills. I had a coffee frap with Heike, and then was still kind of hungry when I got home, so had a bagel with some Swiss cheese and salami. Then after the online session, I had ice cream with rhubarb sauce – the last of the homemade strawberry, and some vanilla, so Wednesday turned into a no-exercise lots of food day. I watched two episodes of the Wire with my ice cream, because I started earlier, and there was a real cliff hanger in the firts one – one of the main characters got shot.
All systems but WiscCal are now back online. WC to be restored today. Still working thru email backlog. Congrats to team for a big effort!
— UW-Madison DoIT (@UWDoIT) June 19, 2014
We were going to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Thursday, so we just had sammiches, and chips. There were three half slices of my own long rise whole wheat, so I had Swiss with mayo & lettuce sandwiched with two of them, and an open face with more Swiss, cherry tomatoes and Siracha on #3.
On Friday I finally made the fried rice I’d been thinking about since last Sunday, with ham, asparagus, turnips, grated candied ginger, scallions, and the last leftover fried egg from trout & eggs for father’s day. I sauteed the big half of the giant bunch of spinach I got in my CSA box with garlic and butter – I kind of wanted to do it Sicilian, with raisons and balsamic, but thought the raisons might be a bit much for the rest of the fam. I put in too much salt, but I think Mark & Toni liked it better that way. Maybe I’ll do the last of the spinach and escarole Sicilian style. We drove out to Stoughton to see Bach Dancing and Dynamite. I watched the last episode of The Wire, season one, and went to bed a little after midnight and slept all the way until 5:17 – how did that happen?
And well before I could even finish writing this post, the futon place got my pics and called me back, and they’re ordering the new piece, gratis. On the phone the owner said, “it’s a full, right?”, and I said, “no it’s a Queen” – and I had already dimly recollected that maybe that’s why I tossed the receipt – my futon that I was buying the frame for is a Queen, and when I got the thing home last fall and it all fit, I tossed the receipt. On the phone, futon store owner had me go measure arm to arm and when I reported 79 1/2 inches, he said, “Oh it IS a Queen”. Maybe at least one thing is slipping back into place. I’m still fretting about the car, but John says he’ll get it fixed.
