Suits and tutus, a bit late

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  The week kicked off beautifully, with Nelson sending me a photo that shows he fills out his suit quite nicely.  Yes!  What a handsome brother-sister team he and Sizzling make!

Not to be left behind in the costuming area, I jumped at the chance to join my friends in celebrating Tuesday 2/22/22 wearing [yes] tutus!

OfSnough did a bit of traveling this week (as is his wont).   Midweek, he went to Philly for a gathering in support of Ukranians (see all the blue and yellow flags?)

And later this week, he went to Virginia for an engineering gathering, where they discussed even bigger gatherings in November. 

Inkling had a lovely week at work.  In previous weeks, customers coming into the yarn shop where she works had been a bit snarky and tetchy about the store's mask requirement, but this week, people seemed much more agreeable, and the mood all around just seemed cheerier.  She is also very (very) much looking forward to an upcoming trip to see four Broadway shows in one weekend:  Moulin Rouge, Six, Phantom of the Opera, and Something-Else-I-wrote-down-in-another-room-but-forgot-for-now.  [update: it's "Come From Away".]

Me, I had a challenging week as Dean.  Short version: some people I like are resigning, a program I want to support is officially getting circumscribed into a smaller box, we're scrambling to figure out how to deal with curricular enrollment something-or-others, and I found yet another area in which I'm not particularly good at politics.  

There are also many areas that *are* going well, and for that I'm super thankful.  There's a bunch of research-grant-admin stuff that I'm working on that is both fun and productive.  I'm teaching a half-credit class which seems to be really helping the students.  I'm leading a faculty-staff show (because, apparently, I don't have enough other things to do in my life), and that's a huge happiness boost.   

Still, between the challenging and the going well, there is so very much going on that I'm finding it a bit hard to keep up.   Hence, the later-than-usual family update.  

At any rate, that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  Stay safe, all. 

family update, with Valentines surprises

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.   We learned some surprising (to us) facts this week, partly by way of celebrating Valentines' Day.   The week kicked off, as it often does, with waffles and an intense game of Boggle, in which Inkling trounced me during one of the four rounds we played.   

Be My Valentine XOO -- check it out!

Kinderling delighted me by sharing photos of her Valen-dinner, . . . 

. . . which she described this way:

Mom this one is for you- ;)

Kiss-adillas,arrows (arroz) y I'm bananas for you fried bananas for our vday dinner

My guy celebrated his romantic Valentine's Day by getting his Covid test in Paris, prior to boarding a flight bound for home.   The next day, he was greatly assisted in overcoming jet lag by getting a case of food poisoning at a local restaurant that wiped him out all day.  By the time he'd recovered, with lots of [internal cleansing] and lots of sleep, he was back on local time.  Yay?

Mathematicians sometimes like to publish what we call "proof with no words" (a graphical presentation of something cool and true); Sizzling texted us all with her "news with no words".  

This was followed by lots of congratulations from all of the Snoughlings, but of course!   

So, this lovely surprise came at about the same time I went to a talk at my campus about carbon footprints associated with various kinds of food.  Beef is seriously, seriously major compared to, like, almost every other kind of food to eat, which I already knew.  To my surprise, though, vegetarian diets aren't always carbon-optimal.  In particular, chicken has a lower carbon footprint than cheese.  Who knew?  Not me!

At any rate, after Sizzling's awesome announcement, OfSnough called her to say they should chat about her dowry:  we've decided that a flock of goats is right out, because their carbon footprint is nearly as bad as those of cows, so instead we're getting her a flock of soybeans.  

We then looked up group names, and learned to our surprise it's not "flock of goats"; it's "trip of goats", or a "tribe of goats".  That's wild.    

Nelson has been invisible, but rumor has it that next week he'll be wearing this fancy suit somewhere.   Let's check back in a week to find out whether it's true!

A group of alligator shoes is called a "pair".

My own life as a dean continues to be a learning experience, although I have to think that most of what I'm learning won't be of long-term use in my life.   The regulations involved in Radiation Safety, anyone?  How about the difference (and corresponding tax implications) between wages, stipends, and fellowships?  I've also spent a lot of time trying hard to be human/humane in the midst of bureaucratic tasks -- like trying to convince already-busy people to take on big committee assignments, or threading the fraught space between administrators sticking to the rules they know and faculty members who want to do research that spills out across the boundaries of those rules.   For example, one of the things that is taking up way, way too much of my time right now is trying to find a way for some of our faculty to take paid student researchers into the field over the summer, with our HR department seizing up because our little College isn't set up to pay taxes in other states -- or worse, other countries.    

I've taken on a bunch of time-intensive, non-dean tasks as well.  Somehow, those haven't added to the overall burden, but rather add sparks of joy.   I'm teaching a half-credit research class, and seeing the progress the students are making is fabulous.   I am giddy about the nifty thing my own small team in particular is figuring out; it kinda blows my mind.   And I'm also organizing a musical for faculty and staff (and trying to reassure other administrators it won't blow up in our faces).   Singing and dancing with my colleagues has been an incredible communal joy --- it takes so much time, and yet it gives me so much energy back.   

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our trips and tribes.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous. 

This week in Enoughsville (and beyond), with a wall-mounted bicycle chandelier

Life here in Enoughsville continues to be rich and full, even though my fam is mostly very far away.  

Nelson, after his two Emergency Room adventures of last fall, has gotten kinda serious about taking care of himself, inside and out.   The taking-care of himself seems to be having tangible effects; he likes the way he looks, his glucose levels are back in the Not-So-Terrifying range, and he's having all sorts of good things happening inside his head, too.  He's been helping to coach a middle school basketball team.  We talked for about 10 minutes on the phone today before I got all phoned out, and that was fun.  He also texted this update:

Got to go to a Minnesota Timberwolf game today

OfSnough is off in Paris, which means Waterloo (he told me this morning), and the he sent me this cool pair of pictures, subject line "Red Baron Memorial":

. . . followed by the explanation, "He was shot down in Belgium."   So, . . . I guess my husband is in Pari-loo-gium.  Happy almost valentines' day, guy!  

And the rest of the fam chimes in:  

Inkling made crocheted flowers; Kindling carved and sanded 27 wooden disks, which Achild (dressed in her Cruella DeVille coat) painted for her classmates; and Gosling's dogs made a lovely pair.

Back here in Enoughsville, the heavy equipment across the street woke up after a week-long nap and made some rumbly noises one morning.  

The construction workers did some mysterious incantations over the new concrete pads that are scattered around what used to be a parking lot . . . 

. . . and then they all went away.  I have been spending my own week not so much thinking about noise as about dark and light.  I'm reading a book a friend gifted me -- Tish Harrison Warren's Prayer in the Night -- for one thing.  It is a lovely meditation and reflection and it gives me a chance to grieve the friend I'm missing, when I have time to think about missing him.  But also, the sunlight these days comes earlier, sticks around later, and has been so amazingly glorious.  Here is a picture of what it looked like when I arrived at work earlier this week.

I've taken down the Christmas lights at last, having left them up for my husband, who has appreciated having their soft glow.  Now that he's wandering around Pari-loo-gium and possibly Germaland or wherever, though, I packed up the Christmas lights and put up a cute lamp I'd made out of a bicycle wheel and a deconstructed chandelier.  So even the dark has a bit of light in it.  

And I guess that's enough for now from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.  

Enoughsville update, with dried fruit

 Life continues to be rich and full enough, here in Enoughsville.   

The earth shakers across the street seem to be tuckered out; they've been hunched over, sleeping on the street with their scoops tucked in like birds' heads under their wings.  The ground that they had been doing their thump-y dances on is now covered over with giant concrete slabs, and posts that look like the start of metal fencing have been erected like sentries around the dance floor.  I guess the party's over, and maybe the beasts will go home to sleep it off soon.  Shhh!  Don't wake them up, anyone.  

I don't like to think of myself as a materialistic kind of person, but just in this week alone I've asked my husband to get me all sorts of things I've been yearning for.  And without even batting at eye at the resulting expense, he turned right around and bought me

• a personal amplifier (with a mike that goes under my mask, and a speaker I can wear on my belt, to make it easier for my students to understand me while I'm teaching),
• a watch battery that cost more than the watch (which I'm pretty sure I got for free, so that's not saying anything),
• raisins (How is it I keep running out of raisins?), and  
• postal stamps.  

These last, even though I asked for them, came with a planned surprise:  who or what might the stamps feature?  To my delight I now have two sheets of Edmonia Lewis stamps,  which cause me to go down an internet rabbit hole figuring out more about who she is.  Was.  (She lived a really interesting life to read about!) And so these were perfect for Black History month, and also for getting me a sculpture fix.  

Edmonia spent much of her adult life in Rome, and so after my husband bought me the stamps, he up-and-left and flew to France.  (Okay, the stamps aren't the reason he's going; and it's not because he misses the noise the diggers across the street used to make, nor because it's romantic to spend Valentine's Day in Paris, an ocean away from your spouse -- the reason he went is for some kind of History of Science conference).   I'll miss him during these ten or so days that he's away, but more raisins for me, I guess.

Somewhat on the same theme as "artist" and "family tree" and "stuff people got for free", I want to share this picture of a tree wall-hanging that Kinderling made from torn-up sheets and other pre-cycled materials.   I have a cast-iron tree above my mantel, and so I love hers, too:

Let's see if I can get a close-up here.

Voila!

And that's a bit of the news from our family, which continues to have quite enough adventures in the family tree to make us feel wealthy.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.