Updates with cows, math, and fancy food

 Life here in Enoughsville continues to be rich and full.  My tongue seems to be healing up, thank goodnessh!  I'm entering the part of the long corridor of the semester in which I try to mock-complain that "my students keep giving me so much to grade!!!" --- which they do, but nobody seems to feel sorry for me. 

My guy went to be a test subject doing scratch-and-sniff experiments at the Monell Chemical Senses Center this week.  They said he doesn't smell good well, and yet they were so grateful for his help as a guinea pig that he's going to go back in the future.  So cool to be part of science!

Late this week, a new cow entered my life.

This cow comes from a senior at our college, a former student of mine who took Calculus (Cow Class) with me her first year here.  She is one of those people who just makes the whole room brighter, so I loved having her in my class, and I'm touched in a gazillion ways that she's stayed in touch with me even as she moves out of the math world into the environmental studies arena.  Earlier this year, I encountered her when I was climbing trees (she's a much better and more experienced climber than I am), and this semester she's joined a book group I've organized around Your Money or Your Life.  The purpose of her visit to me this week was to share a picture book she'd pulled together from her study abroad experience in Quito and the Galapagos Islands.  It was a beautiful book, as you might imagine.   My touchstone word of the year -- Freudenfreude -- was in full force, let me tell you!  It's good for the soul to pass joy back and forth together.

At any rate, I know it's hard to see from the photograph, but this cow is made of a terra-cotta-like clay, covered with fuzzy wool; it has a slot in the top and a hole in the bottom, so it's a little piggy bank cow, if that's not a contradiction in terms.  My student told me her sister found it in a thrift shop, and she said it reminded her of me (which I do take as a compliment, thank you), and so she got it and has been saving it for me.  I think it's a perfect addition to my collection while we're reading a book on personal finance together. 

This leads me to a very funny comparison between two meals.  On Monday afternoon, I made lunch for the 20 people who attended the book group, and on Thursday evening I went out to dinner with my guy at a trendy little restaurant a block from our home . . . and these two meals were quite a contradiction in styles and mood, I have to say.  My guy loves eating at restaurants, and I suggested a night out to make him happy, but he is also highly attuned to my own responses to things, and he couldn't help asking me for my opinions, and so he was a bit on the edge himself.  I wish I could fake it better!

The restaurant was so loud with talking and music that we kept asking "What??" to each other.  [Him: "It's quieter than places that play loud TVs".  Me, in my head:  "I'm sure it's also quieter than places that explode mortar shells or operate jack hammers, but I don't go to those places.  I can hear you fine when we eat at home."]  The dinner was more expensive for just the two of us than my entire 20-person lunch earlier, and that was even after we caught the error in which they nearly overcharged us by some $30.  And the portions were sparing, unlike the lunch where we'd shared leftovers all around.  The whole restaurant experience -- between me and my guy-- was a weird kind of meta emotional thing, because I was trying to do something sweet for my guy that he liked, but I know he had a hard time enjoying it because he couldn't help seeing the situation through my own particular (and very idiosyncratic) frugal lens.    If nothing else, the next evening when we defrosted Thanksgiving leftovers and ate together at home, he knew I was sincerely delighted with the meal.  

So, students, grading, food, and . . . another cow!  This one is a more temporary blue cow drawn on a chalkboard, after a highly productive mathematical session with Achild.

The "O" (or "#") in Love/L#ve
is courtesy of Bchild, actually.

Here is a real-world arithmetic problem that Achild solved herself.  If grandpa broke 27 bones before marrying Nana, and then he broke 13 bones after marrying her, how many bones has he broken in total?

Note the excellent "carrying" going on here.
Fabulous!

My guy currently has no broken bones, and my tongue is healing, and we have lots of yummy food in the house, so I guess that's the update from our family this week, as we continue to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.